Common People
by Momosportif
Summary: The legendary trio sets off on a new mission! To go where no bachelors have gone before, struggling to survive together in a three bed apartment! Forever incomplete, the result of a summer obsession with TOS. Live long and prosper to Gene's soul. Enjoy.
1. The Laundry Issue Pt 1

**Long-ish Author's Note**: Hey, everyone! I just wanted to explain this little project, lovingly called "Common People" after Shatner's song. ;3 Basically, we transported the crew to a place where we wouldn't be bogged down in the details of ship life and could write about things we really knew well and spend all our energy on writing these wonderful characters instead of worrying with plot. Where is the setting? We're not even quite sure ourselves, but essentially we are to understand that for whatever reason Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have taken their pursuit of the unknown to some small apartment on some nondescript planet in the corner of the galaxy and are now battling with the beasts of co-habitation and day to day domestic life. :)

On that vein, this was written while we were in the throughs of our brief but passionate romance with TOS this summer and all of the events are inspired by things we actually did. That means that here you will find silliness to the extreme, ridiculousness at every oppurtunity, shameless slashing in every direction, and no real ending. Had we gotten this posted in the summer, we were hoping other people would add on and write along with us in this peculiar little setting, and you are still welcome to do so, in fact, we would love for these thirteen some chapters to go on and have a life of their own in the fandom. However, what we want most with this story, I think, is for people to have a good laugh and love these characters as much as we do. :)

Please enjoy and thanks so much for reading! I turn you over now to...

The Laundry Issue, Part I. In which Kirk incurs the wrath of his house mates and is assigned a most arduous task.

* * *

"Jim," a singular shiver worked its way up his spine at the sound of the quiet summons, "could you come here for a second, please."

A very singular shiver.

He could all but see them in the doorway behind him, framing it like sentinels calling him to the execution block. Better to speak now than have it forced out of him later.

"Why, yes, Leonard, yes I can." His smooth smile remained intact despite his internal wariness but did little to impress a stoic Spock or sinister McCoy, though it did coax a twitchy sideways contortion of the lips from the latter, something close to a sarcastic smirk but not quite there. This, however, as Kirk well knew, was far from a good thing.

It was time to take the charm up a level.

"Gentlemen! Why so serious? Something bothering you?"

"A very vaguely worded inquiry, captain," Spock adjusted his position in order to keep Kirk in full view, arms remaining crossed and brows raising as he pivoted slowly, "and a rather exclusive one as well, given that in order for something to bother me it would be implied that something was causing an emotional reaction in me, which we both know is impossible-"

"Improbable, Spock, not impossible," cut in McCoy with foreboding purpose lurking behind his words. "But your Vulcan qualities aren't the point of this conversation."

"My apologies, doctor," a blissful respite from being stared down on all sides came for Kirk as Spock turned his unsettlingly even stare on McCoy, "had you alerted me that your goal had switched from entertaining unnecessary chatter to getting to the point, this conversation could have finished approximately three minutes and twelve seconds ago when you first brought up the predicament in question."

McCoy's scowl broke instantly in order to fire back a reply, but Spock nonchalantly went on talking, attention returning to the unfortunate Kirk, "The doctor has a great deal of problems with the state of your somewhat surprisingly extensive wardrobe."

"What does that mean, Bones? A man needs some options as far as attire-"

McCoy, lips pursed in slight chagrin at having to give his self-made, pointy-eared nemesis the last word, cut Kirk off with a stubborn shake of the head.

"It's not the actual clothing articles I have an issue with, Jim, though I might find one or two disagreeable if I looked through them all," McCoy led the way on the short trot from Kirk's bedroom door to another entrance before sweeping an arm to display the source of his alleged 'great many problems', "it's that they're all over our living room floor."

Kirk relaxed, even chuckling a little in his extremely canned but charming way.

"Is that all, Bones? God, you had me worried there for a minute…"

Bones' eyebrows shot up to a dangerous height.

"Oh, you've got every reason to be worried, James Tiberius-"

"Spock, how is it that he got you to come along on the complaining crew?"

"I'm not quite sure I fully understand your question, captain. Though I am not, as you said, 'bothered' by the presence of your personal belongings laid across our communal living quarters, I do find it an extremely illogical and inappropriate place to keep things."

The amusement did not relinquish its hold on Kirk's features as he responded, ignoring McCoy's mounting impatience, "And why's that, Spock?"

"Well," the dark eyes under elevated, slanted brows cast about the moderately sized living room, "to begin, I find it a severe handicap to yourself seeing as you must leave your private quarters, where most people are inclined to dress and undress, in order to clothe yourself. Secondly, it is inefficient, as well as highly inconvenient, for your cohabitants to use this room for its primary functions when most of the furniture is either buried or difficult to reach. And finally, though I am sure I could continue upon further meditations, it is my opinion, and very probably the doctor's as well, that some things," the Vulcan stooped over mid-sentence to fish an item from the sea of clothes lapping at the doorway, coming up with a faded pair of navy boxers with what could only be hand-stitched miniature Enterprises sewn at jaunty angles, "are best kept private."

One of the almost-smiles that occasionally lightened Spock's solemn physiognomy played across the first officer's lips and spread, if anything, as Kirk quickly snatched the offending undergarment from him and wadded it up with a heated haste and a markedly darker, "Understood."

Kirk glanced ruefully at, first, McCoy, who was making no effort to conceal his righteous amusement, and then Spock, who closed and opened his eyes deliberately before reigning in his smile to a minute smirk.

"What is it you're wanting me to do exactly? If you want me to put this all up, you're just going to have to wait a while because, as you both saw, I'm not done unpacking-"

"Obvious and already considered," Spock curtailed what was slowly but surely evolving into an excuse.

McCoy took Kirk's arm in what would have been a companionable way in any other context, but now was as good as the farmer's grasp on a miserably squawking chicken's neck.

"No, no, no, Jim, we've got something much better planned for you."

Spock followed McCoy and his temporary prisoner across their perilously plowed path to the kitchen where the doctor proceeded to open a cabinet under the sink and produce a roll of industrial sized, black trash bags. Kirk squinted up from the ominously opaque cylinder he found pressed into his hands to the wickedly satisfied smile on his friend's face.

"I don't follow-"

"Allow me, captain," Spock joined the pair, shoulder leading, with McCoy's unexpected but apparent approval. "Surprising as it may sound, the good doctor here and I actually agreed that the cost of doing laundry would be lower if we took advantage of the community laundry facilities instead of using the appliances at our own home. Before you argue, I triple checked my calculations and also added in the price of petroleum needed to drive a vehicle to and from the facility."

Kirk shut his mouth sourly as Spock continued as if he hadn't noticed.

"Because the cleanliness of your laundry is obsolete-"

"Eh, eh, eh! Shut your yapper, Jim. We've both seen you toss dirty clothes in here on multiple occasions; don't even try to tell us otherwise."

McCoy shifted slightly to stand beside Spock and once again Kirk felt hopelessly and irreversibly trapped.

"Agreed. To this end we concluded that the most logical course of action was to have you wash and dry all of this today-"

"But, where am I going to put it? Like I said, my room-"

"Again, obvious and already considered. We reached the consensus that what the doctor calls your 'punishment' should be abridged to sorting the clothing into whites, darks, and brights so that the doctor and or myself can attend to the actual washing while you then tackle the task of unpacking and arranging your room into some semblance of order. Any questions?"

Spock tilted his head with a courteous raise of the eyebrows.

Kirk gave a short, rueful exhale, "Yeah. How upset will you be if Bones ends up in one of these black, plastic abysses?"

McCoy's confrontational expression fell immediately into place as Kirk flapped open one of the bags, making a peal of painfully synthetic thunder.

"I've got worse ways for you to spend the weekend, if you're interested, Jim."

Spock, however, turned to leave with a shrug, plunging back into the ankle-deep tide of laundry as casually as if it wasn't there, while intoning delicately, "So long as he's not with the brights."


	2. Pilot Episode

In which we backtrack to see the arrival.

* * *

"I anticipate you will find our paperwork in prime order," the secretary accepted the superhumanly organized forms in silence, inserting them into her computer with listless practice. The plexiglass window shielding her deskspace reflected three faces focused on her computer monitor: one tilted back and angled imperiously with an austere frown in place, one broadcasting agitated impatience, eyebrow arched and mouth twitched to the side, and one coolly eager with exhaling lips who's owner was rubbing his hands together as his gaze raced the scrolling words. Their attention heightened with the flash of a green light and ejection of a door key card.

"Here you go, sirs. You'll want shuttle six, floor three, room number on the key."

There was a small lapse of time in which three individual debates sought to decide the fate of the offered object. By the time the clerk looked up in puzzlement however, warm fingers introduced an equally smooth and intoxicating voice that purred,

"Thank you, madam, I'll take that for you." The blond blinked, a pink tingeing her foundation lathered cheeks in the face of a dazzlingly handsome smile. "Oh, sorry, I got distracted for a moment," she looked down as the unnoticed lingering fingers departed from hers, key card in a strong hand. "I was," the young woman felt her body temperature sky rocket as an impossibly _more_ winning grin spread across the man's features and an arm reached through the small insert hole tilted her face, "star gazing."

She couldn't help but giggle as the man looked from one of her blue eyes to the other, an appreciative grin spreading.

A cough shattered the moment and the secretary looked in alarm to the two attending and forgotten companions. A slightly bored glance and a wide-eyed, painfully blatantly hinting stare sent shivers down her spine, but the flirtatious new renter turned good-naturedly.

"I believe it's time for me to depart," he chuckled intimately and nodded his head towards the cougher (who rolled his eyes), "but I hope we can meet again."

She watched breathlessly as the trio filed out of her office, her conversation partner in the rear leaving a departing wink.

All the years of boring clerical work had finally paid off.

* * *

"Fourth elevator- no, second," the most fidgety of the group halted mid-stride, turning back and colliding with his forward moving friends. "Or was it the-"

"Sixth elevator. Third floor." The charmer and panic attack with legs followed the motorized statue to the appropriate shaft.

"I could have sworn it was the _eighth_," muttered the graying fidgeter as they entered and a confident hand pulled the necessary lever.

Silence grew, two feet anchored boldly past shoulder width, two in the most balance friendly position possible, and a final two rocking up and down to their toes.

A ding opened the lift's doors and the three men followed the solemn dark haired stoic to a plain brown door in a fake wood paint job.

"Are you ready, men?" The flirt gave his companions a sparkling look for dramatic effect before inserting the key card into a slot at waist level. A green light flashed and a computerized voice intoned,

"Welcome misters Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to your new Fleet Fit ™ apartment, number two, 0, 0, five, six, nine." The trio stepped inside and the door slid shut behind them. Three faces roved the space and three connected heads reached the same conclusion: it wasn't much.

"Well," the doctor turned grandly, spreading his arms, "this is home! Better start unpackin'!" He clapped his hands together and looked from Kirk to Spock, a lopsided grin feeding a growing Southern flame of excitement in his eyes, before striding out into the hall and heading for the elevators.

Kirk beamed up at Spock who raised his eyebrows and looked out of the corner of his eyes briefly, weighing the logic in this course of action.

"He has inevitably, forgotten the location of our transportation unit. I will return shortly." Kirk laughed pleasantly as the dull report of boots sounded in the hall, the mirth petering off to the previous satisfied smirk.

"This is home…"

* * *

"I never did, though, I said we should park in the pull through strip and move _after_ so all our stuff would be right outside the-"

"Doctor, I could not advise questioning my memory, as such endeavors have proved embarrassing and humbling to you in the past."

"Pssh, well, I- you and your- dammit, Spock, that's completely beside the point," the two followed the ding cue of the elevator, armloads of boxes and dolly loaded to maximum capacity along with them. "What I'm _trying_ to say here, Spock-"

"And are evidently failing to do,"

"is," McCoy continued, letting this pass with a dark scowl, "that I wish the transport unit weren't parked five hundred ding durn light years away."

"The accurate distance is twenty point five seven three meters," Spock corrected impulsively. The strain of the box carting weakened McCoy's usually vicious retort to,

"Good God, Spock, I don't give a raccoon's tail. And would it kill you to look at me when we argue?" They approached their new door, McCoy looking up in exasperation at the unconnected gaze.

"Most certainly not, doctor, and I dare say I have no use for a mammalian support-" the sentence broke off abruptly and a furtive expression prompted McCoy to follow Spock's frown into their open door. His jaw dropped and his boxes plummeted.

"James Tiberius Kirk!!!" The addressed individual looked around to the doorway from a thoroughly stunned maintenance maid sitting on the edge of the entry room table. McCoy stormed into the apartment in a righteous fury, pulling the captain by the arm and shouting, "This is not what they mean by room service! We haven't been in this place for _three seconds_, and, Spock," he glowered at the motionless Vulcan still on the threshold, "don't you _dare_ tell me it's been twelve point fifty two seconds or I'll skin you alive! Jim, I can't _believe_ you'd do such a-" the affronted housecleaner scampered past Spock as the tirade raged on, leaving not a trace save for a lipstick mark on Kirk's cheek.

As if having been in wait of this alone, the former calmly wheeled the dolly in and clicked the door shut, arranging the boxes in the proper rooms with a background sound of hoarsening verbal abuses. Upon reentering the entry room, he heard the conclusion of McCoy's reprimand.

"House Rule Number One, Jim: no women in the house!"

Kirk bowed his head, temporarily put out.

"And House Rule Number Two," Spock reached between the squabblers and extracted the card key from its discarded place beside the captain, "the key stays with me."


	3. The Laundry Issue Pt 2

In which we return to the problem of the captain's laundry, Spock and McCoy predictably have yet another verbal smack down, and Kirk delves into the very consciousness of laundry sorting.

* * *

"Captain's log, star date… unknown."

Firm hands did not cease their steady task of scrubbing plate ware, but the shamelessly shouted statement did incite a lift of the eyebrows accompanied by a squint of disbelief.

"Having angered my house mates, I have found myself assigned to a most arduous task involving the sorting of my apparently problematic wardrobe into color groups. Thus far I have successfully made a pile of black as my base work for the darks, but where to go from there? When, I find myself wondering, does a blue go from bright to dark and how, I ask myself, does one decide if a pastel is white or otherwise? Can a pastel be bright? And if not, where does it go? Is it assigned to the darks, forced to languish among a mob of hostile strangers-"

"Jim," Spock peered out from the kitchen to see the passionately narrating object of his attention. "Should I even ask?"

Kirk stood slowly from what was revealing itself to be the couch, shaking a sock in rhythm to his returned question, "Ask what, Spock?"

The Vulcan came around the corner wiping sudsy hands over a crimson and navy rendering of Colonel Reb that covered the entirety of his well-worn apron, a household addition made by McCoy. "Ask what it is you're doing exactly. Or, more precisely, why."

"Because it comforts me, Mr. Spock…"

The poor sock still bobbed as Kirk cut his eyes to nowhere in particular, looking distant and deliberating.

Spock waited for five or six seconds in case Kirk was planning on expounding before turning his back to him with a neutral, "I see. I had postulated that it was most probably one of your peculiar human habits-"

"But also… because it helps me think."

The would-be dish washer blinked three times heavily, a mannerism equivalent to an eye roll, at being interrupted by this late but not entirely unforeseen addition. He turned again to face Kirk who whipped around to meet his attending stare, heated by a throatily delivered question, "What about you Spock?"

Dark eyes followed the misadventures of the flopping footwear as Kirk came to stand about six inches away.

"Do you ever find yourself talking through problems like that? Surely you can't denounce it as illogical-"

"Affirmative, captain. However," Spock rather icily pried the now lifeless sock from Kirk's grasp, which, upon inspection, proved to be a sickly lavender, thus explaining Kirk's prior rhetoric, "I personally have never required verbal activity in order to stimulate my thought process."

That said, he tossed the sock to a tiny pile of whites, all the while maintaining eye contact.

Kirk looked from the pile, where the sock at last rested in peace, to Spock, who gazed down at him evenly, and back again several times before his wry grin exploded unimpressively in one of his many exhale-laughs. A stare down commenced, both parties apparently entrenched in thought, until the familiar questioning tone of McCoy carried in from the hall in loud concern.

"Now, Jim… I've got a few questions for you about some of the things I'm seeing in your room-" the words cut off as he appeared in the doorway and took in first the floor and then the duo in the kitchen's entrance, tone switching seamlessly to exasperation in the next breath, "What in Heaven's name have you been doing for the past hour, Jim? Where are the piles?"

Eager to show, but even more eager to stem the flood of what could be a wrath to rival those detailed in the Bible, Kirk stepped lightly through the mess to point out the collection of black clothing articles, "Here they are, see? Darks, a few whites-"

An incredulous noise escaped the unmoved physician.

"A few? Proportionally, it might as well not exist! And what's that?" McCoy picked up the sock, whose trials were apparently yet to be ended, and glared at it with unchecked skepticism. "Now call me crazy, but ought'na purple sock go with the brigh- the colorfuls?"

Kirk, tickled by both the doctor's avoiding the word 'brights' as well as by the easily anticipated conflict, turned expectantly to Spock who, predictably, rose his eyebrows.

"By definition the item in question cannot be grouped with the 'colorfuls', as you called them, because it is pastel in pigment, pastel being 'a light, soft hue or tint'-"

"I know what a pastel is, Mr. Spock!"

The angled brows threatened to disappear completely behind the well-trimmed, ebony fringe.

McCoy plowed on venomously, "And am I to assume from your speaking up that you've been helping him? I thought it was very clear that he was going to sort through all this on his own."

A tilt of the head served as what would have been a shrug for anyone else in his situation and the brows dropped slightly as the defined lines in Spock's face shifted in contemplation before bending stiffly to emit a response, "I am unsure if 'clear' is the word, however, I do agree that such regulations were implied. You can rest assured that I will not consciously give the captain further aid, but it is essential that you not forget his peculiar charm and talent in beguiling individuals."

"Of course, I'm sure I can also 'rest assured' that that 'peculiar charm and talent in' whatever you said will have no effect on a Vulcan, or do I have a few screws loose?"

Spock stopped mid-turn to consider the doorway quizzically, then faced McCoy with an expression of what was nearly apology, "Would it be out of your capabilities to cease bringing up your sanity? I find it disconcertingly tempting conversation fodder."

It was McCoy's turn to endanger the ceiling with his elevated eyebrows, mouth tightening as he watched Spock disappear around the corner in silence while Kirk suppressed his mirth unsuccessfully.

True to his profession, McCoy cured the fit of laughter efficiently and quickly by pitching the sock at Kirk's abdomen and stalking off, speaking at a volume much the same as the one with which he'd entered the room, "Get back to work, Jim, or I'm going to give you enough shots of stimulants to kill a bull alligator!" then muttering, "Crazy… you haven't seen crazy yet…"

"Acknowledged, doctor. Shall we put the entire house on alert or just the shared areas?"

"Sarcasm? I didn't know you were capable of humor, Spock!" chortled Kirk.

"Sarcasm, captain? I was quite serious, and so, too, should you be unless you would like to provide a scientific example of how the human body reacts to an overdose of stimulants, which would be quite unnecessary. I can tell you without any demonstrations that it would be fatal."

"And what about Vulcans, Mr. Spock?" McCoy reappeared, medical kit in hand.

"…Untested, but very likely to have similar effects, particularly assuming that I was your intended subject."

"Then don't give me any more reasons than I've already got…" he crossed to the kitchen under Kirk's satisfied scrutiny, "Now give me a god damned apron and scoot over so you can put things away… I don't trust myself to at the moment."

"Some punishment this turned out to be, eh, Bones?"

"Don't make me come out there…"

A quiet settled on the house, marred only by occasional clinks and padded spray from woven waterfalls.

A delicate mint tie joined the sock on a pile of whites.

"Captain's log… star date, still pending…"


	4. Sad Songs and Waltzes

In which McCoy makes a discovery while unpacking and introduces Spock to the joys of country music with fascinating results (all while the dear captain must labor on in the never-ending piles of his laundry).  


* * *

"Ra ta ta, ta-ta ta ta."

Mildly bloodshot hazel followed an evidently well-rested McCoy as he pirouetted and snapped his way across the impressively clear corner of the living room floor to a wall of boxes.

"Sleep well, Bones?" slurred Kirk, mechanically lifting and dropping clothing into bulging bags. "No bed tribbles or anything?"

"Ohh, ye-es, Jim! Yes indeed!"

Irregular snaps continued as he scanned the stack like a cardboard-bound library shelf, causing the dark look on Kirk's face to deepen.

"And, I'll tell you what, Jim. As bad as this place might look compared to the _Enterprise_, there ain't no substitute in this or any other galaxy for a night spent on good old solid ground."

He threw in a stomp to emphasize this last point and, as if summoned by the action, Spock appeared in the doorway exuding an unusually relaxed vibe.

"Atypically, I must agree with you, doctor. I too found my sleep exceptionally more reviving than I have since…"

"Approximately twenty-seven point five three nine years?" offered McCoy with a lack of venom that Kirk found irritating given his general grumpiness from his recent sleepless night.

Spock tilted his head with an amused, if anything, eyebrow raise and quite a bit more than the occasional hint of a smile.

"A rather unexpectedly precise _and_ accurate supposition, doctor… however, I was simply going to say 'since I was last on Vulcan'."

McCoy wagged a finger in thought as Spock crossed the room, giving an approving eyebrow raise to the clear stretch of floor that had appeared overnight, and retreated into the kitchen.

"You know… you know, I think I understand exactly what you're getting at… Can't say that I've ever slept as well anywhere as I did back home-ah!"

Kirk rolled a shoulder in distaste at the shotgun-like report of McCoy's sudden clap.

"Here we are… let's see…" With a gentile prudence unique to the doctor, he eased a box out to the floor and peeked into it before emitting a motherly croon and opening it completely. "There you are, sweet pea! Let's get you set up and in working order and see if that homes up this little hole in the wall some, hm?"

"Bones, what the hell are you talking to?" Kirk looked over the couch with an unbelieving shake of the head, meeting the doctor's surprised stare with a contemplative scowl.

"Me? Oh!"

Startled became doting as he reached into the box like he was retrieving his first-born child. "I was just making conversation with this little thing here…"

"Bones!" Kirk brightened instantaneously upon seeing the box's contents cradled in his friend's arms. "I'll be- _Bones_! Is that a CD player?"

The doctor winked and gave a single shake of his index finger in affirmation. "Right on, Jim. Been in the family for years… a little old-fashioned, but someone along the line had it refurbished to play audio cards."

He turned it upside down to check the power cell and then placed it lovingly in the bare corner. A delighted grin spread across his expressive lips and the amiable sparkle in his azure eyes proved contagious as Kirk slowly returned the smile.

"Let's see if a little music doesn't make your job go a bit faster, hm?"

A small breathy laugh escaped the corner of Kirk's affectionate smirk as he watched Bones disappear down the hall.

"D'you hear that, Spock? We're going to have some music."

"Affirmative, captain," the reply came swiftly and surely, but the tone suggested more to come as well as definite hesitation.

"Something on your mind, Spock?" Kirk chucked one of a few items lingering to the left of the couch into the darks bag.

"Indeed, captain… I could not help but also hear a certain alteration in the doctor's speaking patterns… a sort of… twang on certain vowel combinations."

A soft huff of amusement came through Kirk's nose and he nodded slightly as he considered a pair of khaki pants.

"That, Spock, would be his southern accent. It's nothing to be concerned about."

"I am not concerned, captain. It does, however, make me rather… uncomfortable."

McCoy returned to Kirk's unconstrained and open laugher and Spock standing in the kitchen entrance with the expression he wore upon encountering the unexpected lengthening his already long visage. After looking between them several times and nothing becoming any clearer McCoy shook his head and crossed over to the outdated music player, fanning out his stack of audio disks like a hand of playing cards.

Spock stalked regally back into the kitchen as Kirk's laughter finally died out and McCoy considered his collection with raised brow and delicately bitten lip.

"Let's see now… Ah! Here's something…" Gentle fingers coaxed the card into a slim slot on the top of the machine and a swell of melancholic and simple plinking and plucking swallowed the room.

Kirk nodded in approval as he shot the khaki's basketball style into one of the open bags of whites, pausing to listen more closely when the vocals at last came in, warbly but plain.

"'Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow'…"

McCoy grinned in agreement.

"A country staple if ever there was one."

"An understatement, but Bones- who's singing?"

"Why, Jim, I'm surprised at you!" The doctor crossed the floor to lean on the couch, an expression of disbelief in place. "Can't you recognize Sara and Maybelle Carter when you hear them?"

"No! Bones, really?" Kirk put a hand to his forehead and let his mouth drop slightly in shock. He indicated the CD-player with a fistful of socks, "Are you telling me you've got the original Carter Family in your collection?"

"Of course I do, Jim," McCoy pushed off the couch to cross his arms, mouth twisting into a smirk. "I'd be ashamed to call myself a Southerner if I didn't."

"Fascinating…"

The elated duo turned to see an extremely attentive-looking Spock in the doorway staring at the CD-player with intense curiosity.

McCoy cast Kirk a quick, suggestive glance before turning to face the entranced Vulcan.

"What's fascinating, Mr. Spock?"

"This music…" He crossed to the scratchily singing machine and crouched by it. "I've never heard anything like it before…"

"You honestly haven't heard a sweet southern gee-tar?"

"A what?"

Kirk chuckled as he ducked behind the couch to collect some clothing items, rising to clarify, "He means a 'guitar', Mr. Spock."

The previously knotted brows relaxed slightly as Spock returned his attention to the CD-player saying somewhat distractedly, "Naturally. An extremely versatile Earth instrument constructed from wood with a soundboard, neck, and-"

"No, no, no, Spock!"

Kirk decided to let the doctor sort through his own can of worms and turned away to begin digging through the shrinking pile behind the couch as McCoy went to stand by Spock.

"You can't reduce it to that textbook idea…In the hands of the right people a guitar is like… well, it's like the voice of the _soul_, Spock- or, hm. How can I put it in your terms? It-"

"No," surprised by the gravity in Spock's tone, Kirk peered around the corner to see his first officer gazing at the floor with great intensity.

"I understand… It… it is _moving_. I can… _feel_ it… _fascinating_."

The captain quickly ducked back around in order to quell his amusement in the crook of his elbow as the doctor kneeled beside Spock, taken aback but undeniably pleased.

"Well, I'll be- of all the- Mr. Spock." He put a hand on his usual enemy's shoulder, causing the latter to look up. "I'm very glad you lik- you find my music so interesting! Let me see what else is on here…"

He clicked to the next track and a much more driving melody burst into the room.

"'Single Girl, Married Girl', also the Carters…"

Some way into the song McCoy skipped on again, listening intently along with Spock who dropped to his rear and assumed a cross-legged position.

"'Cotton-Eyed Joe' by Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing… 'nother classic…"

"The audio quality…" Spock looked up at McCoy again, very focused. "It's strange… very flat, almost-"

"Well, these are old recordings, Mr. Spock… the Carters were big in the 1930's to the 1950's and Bob Wills was around the same time, but a different area of the country, let's see..." A click ushered in a familiar tune and Kirk belted along with the first words in a forced deep bass.

"'Love… is a burnin' thing… and it makes… a firey ring',"

"Mr. Johnny Cash, The Man In Black… a little more recent, died shortly after the turn of the century… 2000's, I think? Anyways… ah, more Cash, 'I Walk the Line'… 'Three Feet High and Rising'-"

"The words and rhyming… very simplistic and easily comprehended, even illogical at times… they seem to sacrifice normal speech structure in order to make the rhyming scheme work and yet, still… it has a strange and alien depth… I can almost not believe that it's created by mere humans."

McCoy gave a short huff of amusement, and perhaps, a bit of pride. "Not only 'mere humans', Mr. Spock, but some of the most plain spoken, uneducated, uncultured humans growing up and making a living in some of the poorest, most god-forsaken places on Earth."

A few moments passed in silence as Kirk continued to sort his laundry with a smile, McCoy stood by, skipping through tracks periodically, and Spock, as close to enthralled as either of his human companions had ever seen him before, sat perfectly still with his fingers laced loosely in his lap.

"I begin to see…" McCoy shook a bit as Spock's thought was carefully released, breaking the quiet, "the music… on a technical level, is highly logical. The melodies and harmonies are quiet formulaic and the words are almost predictable… also given your previous generalization about the pasts and circumstances of these musicians, the themes are equally easy to divine…"

Spock freed a hand to count on as he continued with a catalog, "Death, unhappiness, discontent, unstable or dysfunctional relationships, that peculiar state of emotion they label 'heartbreak', love, longing."

He opened the hand and then closed it, bringing a compressed thumb and forefinger to his lips, "and of course songs about their environment and culture, namely religion and more specifically salvation, sin, and repenting."

The light cutting his hair sliced up and down as he nodded before letting the hand fall to consider the carefully attending doctor.

"Very logical."

McCoy shrugged, lips pulling up as he bobbed his head in concurrence.

"Well, they did what anybody does: they worked with what they knew best." He pressed the fast forward button, lips twisting and one brow arching in thought, "let's see here… there can't be too many tracks left- Ooh-ee!"

The sudden cry of elation merited a jump of the eyebrows from Spock and a quizzical stare over the sofa from Kirk.

"Jim, get out of from behind that couch and come dance with me! If it isn't Ms. Alison Krauss… I'll be damned, I'd forgotten how much I love her, sweet girl, sweet voice…"

Kirk entered the laundry-less floor with an extravagant bow, which Bones answered with a good-natured, gaudy curtsey before taking the captain's offered arm and commencing an awkward, but energized dosie-do. Their antics rated a mildly affronted expression from the still seated Vulcan who left off watching them promenade towards the kitchen in favor of further scrutinizing the lyrics of this particular piece.

"_Try as I may, I could never explain what I hear when you don't say a thiiiing_"

Spock's brows plummeted in a lack of understanding that carried on to the gently crooned chorus.

"_The smile on your face let's me know that you need me, there's_-"

"'a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me!'"

"_the touch of your hand_-"

"'says you'll catch me if ever-" behind the puzzled Vulcan, Kirk executed a skillful, brief dip followed by a spin, "_I faaaall_"

The out of breath back up singers made an aggressive series of turns before collapsing on the couch to sing in their best imitations, McCoy batting his eyes with a wrist on his forehead and Kirk pressing both palms delicately over his heart.

"'You say it best'," they looked at each other with mock romance, "'when you say nothing at aaaall!" then exploded into laughter as the second verse was ushered in by a dramatic banjo riff.

"Aaah, Bones," Kirk put a hand on his dance partner's knee, radiating his overpoweringly sincere brand of camaraderie. "That's the most fun I've had in years! Who knows," he cast his eyes upward, but seemed to see something beyond the ceiling, "maybe this move wasn't such a bad idea after all."

McCoy studied him with a warm grin before glancing up to the object of Kirk's pensive stare and then to the man himself, saying softly, "Who knows, Jim…"

He returned the pat on the knee, using it as a fulcrum as he leaned towards the very involved Vulcan and said without a trace of his sobriety of the seconds before, "Say, Mr. Spock, I do believe this song fits you like a glove."

Kirk looked down, interest piqued and playful smirk in place.

Spock made the forty-five degree turn necessary to place himself in profile to the observers on the couch.

"I am afraid to say that I do not follow, doctor. I find this piece particularly difficult to comprehend-"

"Uh, uh, uh! Let me explain…" McCoy broke off, listening to the words in apparent search of a specific line. Upon noting the point in the song he added in a quick aside, "It's as simple as the others… you'll see in a second-"

He held up a finger for quiet as the chorus began.

"_The smile on your face let's me know that you need me, there's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me_," McCoy started in anticipation as Spock's expression darkened markedly.

"_The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall_."

The doctor shut his eyes and spoke along with the singing, fingers waving as if conducting an imaginary orchestra.

"'You say it best… when you say nothing at all'. Huh? Isn't that just you in a nutshell, Mr. Spock?"

Kirk howled with delight and the dark expression settled into a tight frown.

"Oh, that's good, Bones, that's _good_! Fits him like a glove, don't you agree, Mr. Spock?" Kirk's response-inviting smile met a monumental failure in taking down Spock's flat scowl.

The song concluded (with a rousing repetition of the apparently offensive lines) and the audio card ejected itself, finished.

Spock plucked it stiffly from the slot and stood, placing it coolly in McCoy's lap before straightening into a very military posture to state crisply, "My previous activity in the kitchen, prior to this interruption, revealed a startling lack of some necessary sources of protein, namely eggs. To that end I request permission to take the transportation unit on an expedition to replenish our stores."

An exhaled laugh escorted Kirk's purposefully provocative reply, "I'm not the captain here, Spock. You don't need to get my permission to run to the grocery store for eggs."

"In that case, I will be back within the hour." Spock walked briskly to the hall and the soft thunk of the door sliding back into place came briefly after.

The remaining two men looked slowly at each other, a slight guilt glittering in their small smiles.

"I think we hurt his feelings, Jim."

"I'd agree with you if he was supposed to have any."

Kirk stood and made his way to the back of the couch under McCoy's thoughtful scrutiny. "As it is, I think we'd be hurting his feelings even more if we were to entertain such an assumption."

"In any case, I think we've had enough music for one morning, eh, Jim?"

Kirk made a show of gathering himself to his fullest height, putting his heels together, and raising his eyebrows with a deliberate tilt of the head while crossing his arms behind his back and intoning in a flat voice, "Affirmative, doctor."

* * *

"Well… looks like that's all of it, Jim!"

"Oh, God, _finally_!"

Kirk collapsed melodramatically against a bulging bag. "I'll be glad if I never have to see this all again."

He regarded the line of trash bags warily from the corner of his eyes.

McCoy appeared beside him, propping an elbow on the bag and effectively blocking his view.

"Unfortunately, that's not to be… you're going to have to put this all away once we get it washed… which reminds me," he returned to a standing position and prowled to the hallway entrance, casting furtive glances into its depths before turning back towards Kirk, hunched in agitation. "I'll need to talk to Spock about which one of us is taking it down there…"

Their eyes met in mutual disquiet.

"Can't say I'm looking forward to it."

Some time passed in an uneasy silence, mostly spent casting closeted squints down the hall towards Spock's room where he had retired about an hour earlier with his evening meal. True to his word, he had arrived promptly at eight that morning with eggs in tow. After mulling about in the kitchen mysteriously until roughly noon, during which McCoy had retreated to his room to unpack while Kirk dutifully continued to sort, he announced he was leaving to see about copies of their door key card and came back at three to find his two housemates both in the living room's far corner finishing Kirk's job ensemble. Without a single word about the doctor's hypocrisy, Spock gave them both a copy of the door key and a briefing on the consequences of losing it before proclaiming that he was going to be in his room finishing unpacking if either of them needed him. He had made a brief appearance to clang around in the kitchen at seven before departing with a tray in silence at eight.

It was now nine o'clock and McCoy and Kirk, task at last accomplished ventured cautiously into the kitchen expecting Spock to appear out of nowhere and tell them to leave at any second.

As it turned out, no such illogical action occurred, but his presence was not lacking.

"Bones," Kirk caught his companion's attention from where he was closing the blinds.

He nodded once towards the counter. "Look at this."

The doctor joined him in reading a clipped message in dry erase ink next to a massive pot of box macaroni.

"I took the liberty of preparing human food in practice for what I am sure will be many more meals. Some alterations were made from the instructions on the box, as I found them scientifically unsound. I hope that the amount is adequate to sustain you both. As I have heard you both say on several occasions before partaking of food, 'Bon apetit'."

Kirk shook his head, a smile spreading across his lips rapidly.

"God damn it, Jim!"

McCoy stomped and glared in the Vulcan's supposed general direction. "I've got to apologize to him, even if there's not an emotional bone in his whole damn body!"

Kirk followed the marching physician after taking an appraising sniff of the pot's contents.

"Spock! Spock, are you in there? McCoy, coming in."

The door slid open to a neat and evidently complete room very similar in décor to the one he had occupied on the _Enterprise_.

"Spock?"

Kirk peered in after McCoy, who entered a few paces and made a three-sixty turn.

"He's not here, Jim, I-" The doctor suddenly bolted at the unsuspecting captain, carrying them both safely into the hall with his impressive momentum.

"What in the blazes are you-"

"He was outside, Jim." McCoy unnecessarily dusted himself as he released Kirk. "I heard his voice out on the balcony."

"The balcony!" Kirk grabbed McCoy's arm mid-dust and rushed into his own room, shoving aside boxes to get to the door that led to the single bathroom. "There's another balcony out here…"

"Dammit, you've got one too? How is it that I'm the only one without a-"

"Shh!" Kirk crouched, slitting the door ever so slightly.

The night breeze carried in a melody the two men recognized immediately but played in a peculiar tone that they also recognized as that of Spock's Vulcan lute, though the combination was difficult to process.

"Well, I'll-"

Kirk raised a hand to silence the doctor who finished the exclamation by mouthing, "be damned."

A quiet rumble joined the watery voice of the instrument and then broke into words before either listener realized it had been Spock humming.

"'The smile on your face let's me know that you need me, there's a truth in your eye saying you'll never leave me… the touch of your hand says you'll catch me'," Kirk protruded his head with the utmost caution in order to see what he could not believe he was hearing, "'if ever I fall'…"

He felt McCoy leaning out over him, bracing himself on the wall and his back.

Spock turned to his hands, eyes closed in either deep concentration or deep appreciation of the music, "'You say it best'," the words were barely above a whisper and the strumming little more than a brush of fingertips over the strings, "'when you say nothing at all'."

Kirk closed the balcony door on the last few gentle bars.

"Well… it was almost all I could do to keep from applauding…" He lifted his eyes to the now sealed door thoughtfully. "It would appear as though any transgression is more than forgiven."

McCoy, as ever much less collected, ran his hands down his face and then clapped them together as if in prayer.

"If I have _ever_ said he didn't have a soul… and, _God_, if I have ever said I don't believe in miracles," he let his hands fall to his knees and shook his head, mouth contorted in complete and utter surprise, "I am a believer now."


	5. Pon Farr

In which the inevitable Pon Farr reference is made.

* * *

Even from a profile view McCoy could recognize this particular terse expression as a contemplative one. He squinted in concern from his position leaning against the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, opening his mouth slightly before approaching the morose Vulcan with a query on his lips.

"Watcha lookin' at here, Spock?" His roommate exhaled and grimaced slightly but made no response. Respectful of his evident worry (and especially the dearth of a, "The calendar, obviously, doctor," type answer), McCoy scanned the weeks tacked to the cabinet's side without pressing further. His gaze stopped on a red sticker connected to a line in red pen spanning across the top of five boxes. An important date. McCoy read the day and pooched his lips out as he racked his brains for what this could possibly be, what event would upset Spock like this. His eyebrow jumped up as a thought struck suddenly. "Has it been seven years already?" McCoy turned his face slightly as Spock did the same, tilting his head a bit and blinking forcefully twice.

"To use one of your beloved euphemisms, if I had a penny for every time-"

"Okay, okay, I was just wondering-"

"either you or James automatically assumed that any concern of mine had connection to that particular part of my life-"

"I'm sorry, I get it, I get it-"

"I would have-"

"for the love of God, Spock-"

"_precisely-_"

"Oooh, Lord, here it comes-"

"one dollar and two cents."

McCoy scowled heatedly at the subtly self-satisfied Vulcan who had returned his gaze to the calendar with a measured shrug. A grudging lapse in conversation ensued during which the doctor made a glowering show of conciliatory preparation and the science officer barely smiled in amusement.

"Well all right, I'm _sorry_, Spock, I'll be more considerate in the future." McCoy glanced up from the corner of his eyes before facing his cohabitant full on again.

Spock crossed his arms behind his back and replied, "We are hosting my family reunion that week," before pivoting and walking sedately towards the living room.


	6. Pictorial Renderings

In which Kirk's egotism is facilitated and unpacking takes more backwards steps.

* * *

"Aaaaah ha ha ha, hwoo!" Kirk blew non-existant dust off a flat panel he'd just extracted from one of the seemingly hundreds of boxes in his bedroom. He fondly ran a hand across the screen before pressing its activation button. "Oh, _God_, would you look at this?" a delightedly surprised grin touched his face as he keyed a security sequence to access the files stored in the thin, steel contraption. McCoy's head appeared in the doorway between he and Kirk's rooms. He eyed the panel curiously and stepped into the maze of boxes, fine drinking glasses in hand indicating that he too was attending to unfinished unpacking.

"Watcha got there, Jim?" he joined the captain seated on the edge of his bed. Kirk huffed a short laugh, explaining by showing, fingering the necessary touch screen buttons to pull up an enlarged photo of an infant staring cross-eyed at the camera. He looked knowingly at McCoy as a wide smile began to spread across the doctor's features.

"Aw, Jim, he's a mighty cute little fella… Say, Jim-" Kirk chuckled as his companion's expression transformed to one of disbelieving shock as he leaned close to the panel. "That's not-" McCoy squinted, pulled away, then leaned closer again, lastly looking up to Kirk's humored face, "is that-"

"Yes, it's me, Bones." The doctor tilted his head slightly, visage softening to a very paternal one-sided grin.

"Well, I could have sworn it was, I'll be… Is this a photo album?" Kirk nodded, smiling in amusement at his markedly younger self. McCoy wapped his arm in excitement, "Well, good gracious, show me the rest of the pictures!" A push of a button set the machine into slideshow mode and an image of the same baby swaddled in blue filled the screen. "Look at there," McCoy crooned softly, "that must be your hospital picture." Kirk bobbed his head once more,

"I haven't seen it in years." McCoy looked up abruptly and shouted,

"Hey, Spock, come 'ere a second!" as a toddler Kirk posed on a starship deck replaced the previous picture. Slippered footsteps preceded the requested audience's appearance in McCoy's doorway.

"We find ourselves distracted once again," he commented flatly before joining them with obvious reluctance, arms crossed behind his back in suppressed disapproval. The engrossed pair ignored his stony appraisal and Bones patted the bed for him to sit saying,

"You've got to see this, can you tell who that little kid there is?" Spock, standing, looked from the screen to Kirk and blinked once.

"The captain."

"Can you believe it? He's an adorable scamp, don't you think?" McCoy and Kirk shared a good-natured laugh at the shirtless toddler sharing their amusement as he practically bathed in birthday cake. "I have a picture almost exactly like that!" McCoy exclaimed merrily. "My photo album's somewhere here…" he added thoughtfully, "got some pictures of my little girl… and my wedding."

"Keep an eye out for it, Bones. I'd love to see," Kirk elbowed him amiably.

"Fascinating." The current object of multiple attentions glanced up at the Vulcan, a sparkle in his eye.

"Do you have photo albums, Spock?"

"Of this nature?" The captain nodded.

"No, indeed." Spock watched as Kirk appeared wading in a monstrous mud puddle. "My parents felt no need to immortalize my youthful antics in pictorial form. Such photos document strictly sentimental images with no constructive use, a want my family would obviously have no need to satisfy." McCoy snorted and gnawed the side of his mouth derisively.

" 'No constructive use', my hypospray." Kirk looked slyly up to Spock to find his eyebrows raised defensively. McCoy followed suit, staring lazily at the attending Vulcan and shaking his head slightly as he retorted, "We'll have to ask your mother about _that_, Mr. Spock. I don't think anyone could resist capturing your tiny bowl cut on film."


	7. Magic from the Mother Country

In which the doctor discovers disgusting windows, Kirk joins him on the mission to defeat dust, and the pair becomes aware of their very interesting neighbors.

* * *

"Jesus Christ!"

"What is it, Bones? Did you hurt yourself?" Kirk leaned into the doorway connecting their rooms, features arranged into an expression of serious concern, to see his addressee standing near the windows with a scowl of distaste firmly in place.

The doctor started and looked up, blinking at empty space before making eye contact briefly, then looking down and around to the window again, saying slowly, "No, no… didn't hurt myself…"

"Then what is it?" Kirk fired briskly, impatient with his friends' lack of focus.

Again, Bones completed a circuit of blinking and blankly staring before scrutinizing the window again.

"It's these windas, Jim, they're all- Well, come 'ere a minute, will ya? Take a look for yourself!"

With a halfway completed roll of the eyes Kirk crossed through his companion's infinitely tidier room to where he stood glaring at the window.

All irritation vanished as Kirk got a good look at the pane.

"Good God, Bones!" He quickly ran a finger over the glass and stared at it with mingled disgust and curiosity as it came away gray at the tip. "There must be at least an inch of dust there!"

He glowered intently at his finger for a few more seconds then snapped to awareness, making haste to thoroughly remove the dust with several swipes across the pant leg.

The duo exchanged pensive glances; McCoy's mouth twisting in discontent and Kirk's flattening to a tight, grim, line.

At last McCoy shook his head and turned away. "Let's check the one in the bathroom and Spock's room, if we can get in… I know the kitchen's fine, maybe it's just here."

Kirk was already climbing through his boxes to get to the bathroom by the time the doctor's request concluded.

Lips pursed, McCoy managed to navigate Kirk's room just in time to walk in on the captain lustily wrenching open the curtains to reveal an equally repulsive set of windows.

A bob of the head brought McCoy's gaze from Kirk's questioning over-the-shoulder stare to the corner of the doorframe. He brought a knuckle to his lips and looked up to the door connecting Kirk's room to Spock's.

Kirk wiped his hands together as he dismounted the tub and his defeated eyes joined McCoy's in considering Spock's door.

"Shall I, or would you rather?"

"Go on, Jim… if you can."

Kirk shoved a stack of boxes aside and then approached the increasingly ominous looking door.

It remained solidly shut.

"Open," Kirk commanded with authority.

"Entrance denied. Password required."

"Password?" Kirk's eyes narrowed and he turned back to McCoy. "We can put our doors on permanent lock and implement a password? Did you know this?"

"No, but I imagine Spock of all people would be one to mess around until he figured out all those damn gadgets and buttons."

He shook his head and shrugged. "It's no good, as far as I'm concerned… unless you think we can guess it."

Kirk's devil-may-care smile fell into place, much to McCoy's dismay. The doctor folded himself neatly to recline on a box as Kirk returned to facing the door.

"Let's think like the opposition: logically. Spock wouldn't have taken the time to do this unless he considered us to be a threat to his privacy, which he obviously-"

"and correctly-"

"did. Following that train of thought, it is correct to assume that he would have selected a password specifically to keep us out. In other words..."

Kirk turned dramatically to Bones as he slowly looked up in realization. "Something we would never think of."

"Bingo."

Kirk turned his back on his friend's impressed smirk, pleased at having successfully roped the doctor back in. "Now we just have to analyze which one of us he had in mind, which one of us he suspected."

McCoy cocked his head in doubt and incomprehension.

"Why'd he suspect only one of us? I'd assume he's smart enough to pick something that'd block the both of us."

"Oh, he's smart enough alright, but I don't think he feels we're threats of equal magnitude…" Kirk whirled about, half-squinting.

"Well, d'ya think he's more afraid of you or me?"

"Answer me this, Bones. If it were just you and him, if I wasn't even in the picture, do you think he would do this?"

The mercurial mouth went through a variety of motions as he mulled this over and finally said, in a light way that clearly broadcasted he wasn't quite following how this question played into solving their problem, "I don't suppose he would, Jim… I can't say why I think that, but-"

"You don't need to. As brash and confrontational as you sometimes are, Spock's logic as well as my emotion-affected opinion, would lead to the conclusion that you wouldn't burst in on a person unless you were extremely, extremely intimate with him or knew he was in danger at the moment."

McCoy's eyebrows twitched at this analyzation.

"You're of a reciprocal mind, Bones. As a general rule, you do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Additionally, you and Spock have worked together on a much more level-playing field than Spock and myself have. I was the captain; I had absolute authority."

McCoy studied Kirk through half-closed eyes before asking, "So you think it's you he geared it to?"

"I don't think, I know. Logic is on my side. The only question now is what he thinks I would never guess…"

Kirk revolved slowly until he was again facing the door. "Well, forgetting everything we just said, what would you have guessed right off the bat."

"His name, details about himself, his culture…"

"So it follows that the farthest thing from that is what will open the door."

McCoy eased himself up as they closed in on their target.

"Things about me, my- Open!"

"Entrance denied. Password required."

"James Tiberius Kirk."

"Password incorrect. Entrance denied."

Kirk's expectant expression crumpled to contemplation. He looked to McCoy in order to share a befuddled glance only to find the doctor smiling coyly at his shoulder.

"Open."

"Entrance denied. Password needed."

"Jim."

The door clicked and slid open as McCoy looked down at Kirk with a triumphant cock of an eyebrow. "After you, captain."

Kirk stared evenly at his medical officer before letting a breathy laugh escape and venturing in. McCoy stood in the doorway in order to keep the door ajar and watched Kirk take the few steps necessary to reach Spock's apparently untouched floral curtains and reveal the grim-tinted glass beneath them.

"God damn it, even with all this new fangled tom-foolery a body can't get some simple windows cleaned before renting out a place? Of all impractical…" the doctor's incriminating explanations quieted to incomprehensible grumbles as Kirk pulled back the balcony blinds an inch or two before letting it fall with a sigh.

"Funny… I know he's used his balcony and I'm sure he'd have cleaned this off if he'd noticed…"

"He's probably only using it after dark, I mean, think about it, Jim." McCoy let the door slide shut as Kirk entered his own room. "We've all been busy in other places or unpacking and if he's anything like me," the doctor let a snort of incredulity from Kirk pass with only a glare, "he's forgotten natural light exists, let alone that it's an option."

"I see your point, Bones… though it's a substantial exaggeration."

"For God's sake, Jim, we already got in his room, you can spare me the logic. As if I don't get enough of it while he's here…"

The indistinguishable muttering returned as Kirk chuckled and began to make for the hall door.

"But if you insist on making me miserable twenty-four seven, Spock 2, you better help me find some window cleaner asap. We've got a job to do!"

The doctor's mini-rant rose in volume as Kirk disappeared into the living room only to appear seconds later with a squirt bottle, two rags, and an irresistible smile.

"One step ahead of you, doctor."

* * *

"You can stop all your huffing and puffing, Jim… it's not as though we've got an audience." McCoy sent a reprimanding look up to Kirk from the corner of Spock's balcony door where he was scrubbing at the window intensely.

The dust, they had discovered, was made of sterner stuff than they'd expected.

Kirk beamed down jovially, taking roughly twice the time necessary to wipe non-existent sweat from his forehead.

"No audience? Quite the contrary, Bones, I've got three sun-bathers' and one plant-waterer's attention."

"Well," McCoy's scrubbing grew more violent, "_well_," he finally stopped, slapping his rag on his knee and wagging an accusatory finger, "well, Jim! Well, Jim… I've got several problems with that, one: it shows you're off task and two, which is much more important: why on Earth didn't ya tell me?"

Kirk chuckled as McCoy peered carefully over the edge and then returned quickly to the task at hand with a satisfied grin. "Not bad, Jim, not bad at all… that plant-waterer's a right looker, I tell _you_."

Kirk nodded amiably. "That she is, but I personally prefer our bikini wearing blond to the southeast… She's got a nice tan… must work on it often…"

"And I'm sure before the week's out you'll know exactly how often and probably her name and number if you're lucky."

"Oh, Bones, you flatter me," Kirk squirted a particularly reluctant patch for the third time and waited a few seconds before attacking it with a gusto that immediately paid off. He handed the window cleaner to the kneeling doctor before sneaking a surreptitious downward look and intoning gravely, "Between unpacking, all your little odd jobs like this, and playing mediator for you and Spock-"

"Now wait just a minute, Jim!" McCoy's strokes became unnecessarily vehement once more. "Are you trying to put off every little brawl with that green-blooded machine on me? You've started your fair share and-"

"Not so, Bones. I can coax an eyebrow raise out of him if I really set my mind to it, but you're the one who really gets under his skin. Not only that, but I should point out that, ironically, you're always condemning him for a lack of emotion and the burial of his human qualities even though I see the most human and emotional side of him in those self-same conversations with you."

Kirk smiled slyly down at the affronted doctor.

"You've got a special talent, my friend."

The intensity of McCoy's animosity at this point probably should have broken the glass, let alone got the smudge off, but, as he stood to give Kirk a rather large piece of his mind, something completely threw him off the warpath.

The would-have-been victim of the onslaught, missing the outburst he'd been expecting, turned to study his attacker curiously. "Bones?"

"Look at that, Jim," the doctor pointed out the faint smears on the pane, "and that… and- I'll be shot, hung, and buried alive, those little streaks are everywhere… they must be from the washing, you know, where we wiped…"

The blue eyes flicked around in growing disappointment.

"Let's try going over them with something dry…"

Thirty minutes three sets of rags, one newspaper and a sponge later a disgruntled Kirk and despairing McCoy collapsed on the couch, communicator out and ready.

"House to Spock, Kirk here."

"Hello, captain. Am I overly anticipatory in assuming this call is coming only because you have finished unpacking?"

"Yes, you are." A smile born of stress crept over his lips as a small sigh came across.

"Then to what, I am sure, extremely pressing event do I owe this call?"

"What do you know about cleaning windows?"

"That it is easily done by current technology."

"By hand, I mean."

"Explain."

Kirk told the story of their many trials and tribulations in admirable succinctness.

"First, why did you not simply alert management as it is their duty to-"

"It's too late for that, Spock!" called McCoy from behind a hand busy pinching the bridge of his nose. "We've started and we're going to finish it."

"Second, given your illogical stubbornness, why do you not merely accept the window's cleanliness? The streaks you mentioned, as the doctor surmised, are merely from the wiping process. As they do not impede vision or pose a threat to our health, I propose-"

"The problem is that we want to remove the marks." McCoy put both hands out as if holding an invisible object from the sides, "If you've got an answer to our problem," he moved his hands horizontally, then let them drop, "we'd like to hear it. If not, you're wasting your breath."

"Understood. To that end, I will proceed to my third and unrelated point. I am unsure whether I should be impressed or taken aback by your ability to break and enter my room."

"Wait… I didn't tell you that part, did I?" Kirk looked to Bones for affirmation but received only a hopeless sigh.

"Negative, captain. You did, however, mention that it was my balcony door you were washing. I was thus able to discern that you managed to guess my password or trick the devise. The latter is improbable as it is a highly advanced system-"

"What is the world coming to? We can lock people out of our rooms but our windows can't be cleaned properly?"

"-therefore it must be the former."

McCoy grabbed a rag and staggered off, apparently having taken all of Spock he could take at the moment.

"I assure you that it will again be changed, but I do applaud your ingenuity."

Kirk looked after the doctor, brows bent with deep contemplation.

"You'll be interested to know that it was Bones who actually got it…"

A pause from the other side followed that lasted long enough for, Kirk imagined, Spock to raise his eyebrows.

"Fascinating."

"Quite." His tone switched suddenly to business like as he prepared to snap the communicator off. "Well, keep persevering with the laundry. I'm sure the end is near."

"I have no comment on that matter. Spock out."

* * *

"Bones, I-"

"Shh!" McCoy jerked his head, indicating for Kirk to come out quietly.

As he stepped out onto the balcony, McCoy grabbed his elbow and steered him to face the opposite direction, whispering, "Looks as though we've got some interesting neighbors."

It was all Kirk could do not to explode in laughter.

"Wow! This is really doing the trick. I would have never thought going over the windows with wipes would take the streaks out."

"Well of courses eet works! These ar-ent jeest normal wipes, you know. They are a Russian inwention. We use them to wash the weendows een our giant churches as well as the-"

"What is it, Chekov?" Hikaru Sulu looked first up to his speechless friend and then in the direction of his open-mouthed stare.

"Howdy there, boys," McCoy smirked, leaning on the rail nearest the shocked navigator and helmsman as Kirk let his amusement out in a laugh that would have sounded completely ingenuine coming from anyone else's throat.

"Well, well, well! Looks like the whole crew's practically here! How are you, Chekov? Sulu? Bunking together these days?"

A beat or two passed until the shock passed and both began talking at once.

"We're wonderful, how are you captain? Doctor?"

"We're jeest stehying here until we can find a better place-"

"How on Earth did you end up here too?"

"-eet's for streectly monetary reasons, really-"

"Is Spock staying with you as well? I thought I saw him in the hall this morning, didn't I, Chekov? He wouldn't believe me-"

McCoy and Kirk exchanged paternal smiles before Kirk cut them off, "Enough, enough! I heard you say something about the streaks on your windows. We're currently having an issue with that. Can you…"

"Oh! The windows!" Chekov's cherubic face shone as he smiled. "That's a wery easy eesue to address. You seemply run ower the weendows weeth one of dees," he flopped a rather regular looking wipe at the pair on the other balcony, "and eet disappears! Poof!"

He made a blossoming gesture with his free hand.

"Eet's like mageec fa-rum the mother country!"

"Glad to know that some things don't change," Kirk half-sighed with a lift of the eyes. "I don't suppose we could borrow any of that 'magic from the mother country', Chekov?"

"Oh, of course you can, capteen!" He leaned slightly out and Bones lunged further to meet his hand halfway and take the wipe.

Sulu stood, smiling in his discreet but warm way. "I'll bring some more over right now. Meet you in the hall."

"Sounds like a plan." McCoy ducked around Kirk, looking more content and less volatile than he had all day.

Kirk followed the doctor's retreat with a similarly pleased and fulfilled aura before turning back to a merrily wiping Chekov.

"Say… have you noticed the view yet, Pavel?"

"The wiew?"

Chocolate eyes looked out questioningly and then down in understanding.

He came up with a broad smile. "Why, yehs, capteen. Yehs, I had."

They both looked down in a southeasterly direction, smiles taking on a whole new level of meaning and both jumped to attention when their co-habitants arrived.

Sulu and McCoy for their part, eyed their jumpy companions, peered curiously over the rail, and then shook their heads in disgust and disbelief, respectively.

After some time was spent marveling over the effectiveness of Chekov's wipes, the flattered benefactor leaned towards Kirk who caught on and shuffled as close to the rail as possible in order to catch the words whispered out of the side of his mouth.

"Her nehm ees Weronica and shee leeves two floors down from us with a studious friend who ees out fa-rum seex to eight on work days. I believe we are een love."

He sighed and blinked, clearly on another planet entirely, as Sulu cast him a disapproving sideways glance and Kirk shuffled back to his position nearer to Bones.

He felt the doctor's questioning eyes and cut his own over melancholically to pronounce, "As I was saying before, between unpacking, all your little odd jobs like this, and playing mediator for you and Spock," he sighed in defeat, "I don't even stand a chance."


	8. Asteronomee

In which Spock has his first encounter with the neighbors and discovers love in more ways than one.

* * *

_Click_.

A slow and steady breathing rate brought his chest up and down in subconsciously counted intervals of ten seconds.

_Click, click_.

Nine seconds.

_Click. Swish! Swish! _

Seven, six.

_Click, click, click_.

Four seconds up, four seconds down. His eyebrows plummeted.

_K-K-K-K-K-KUUUU! Click, click_.

Two.

The dark was penetrated by a pair of tense, black eyes.

Spock sat up in bed and turned to his balcony window.

Light was shining through the blinds, spilling into his room in anemic rectangles.

_Click_.

They were swallowed in black.

Spock blinked to adjust his vision, brows still furrowed.

_Click, click_.

A slash: ghosts of the slanted slivers of light making a brief reappearance before darkness filled the room again.

_Click. Swish- K-K-K-KUU!-swish-k-k-Click, click_.

Light.

_Click. _

Dark again.

Spock waited for exactly twenty seconds with no change.

With a tilt of the head and lift of his brows, the Vulcan gently lowered himself to his straight-backed resting position, closing his eyes with an air of finality.

_Click. _

Spock firmly pulled down his sheets and swung his socked feet to the floor as a series of clicks caused the light to jump back and out across his floor a total of seven times before he reached the balcony door.

With a pneumatic whooshing noise it opened and admitted him into the night.

_Click._

The flash of light incited an instinctive raise of an arm to shield his eyes.

There was no question now. It was coming from the balcony to his left.

_Click. _

He let his arm drop and went swiftly to the rail, leaning over as far as his impeccable sense of balance would safely allow and squinting into the dark.

_Whoosh!_

"Wuups! How deed the dourra open? I thought I locked it only a meenite ago-"

_Whoosh! _

Spock's eyebrows leapt up in alarm as the door slid shut, turning the easily recognized voice into incomprehensible murmurs.

But the knowledge gained by the brief opening not only explained much of what had caused the Vulcan to leave his repose but left him more than prepared for the next flash of light.

_Click, whoosh, ssssh_!

"Aah! What ees going on!"

_Click.. sss_-

"Oh!"

"Everything alright, Pavel-kun?"

A dazed and soaking Chekov looked up with a shocked (and slightly hurt) curiosity to where a rather benign looking sprinkler, evidently meant for the absent glass door, dripped innocently while he replied cautiously, "Everryting ees aright, yehs…"

"Is the balcony ready? I've almost got the telescope put together."

"Umm…"

"Mr. Chekov." Spock's even statement snapped the navigator out of an anxious and downward-spiraling appraisal of the balcony just as he was about to try another button.

The boyish features went wide with surprise as he ventured across the threshold and queried into the darkness, "Mr. Spock? Ees that you?"

The Vulcan attended patiently for his puzzled neighbor to come to the rail and lean out with eyes bunched into slits and upper lip raised in the same way it usually was when he spoke.

After hovering a few inches from Spock's face, Chekov's features loosened in apparent recognition and he confirmed, "Mr. Spock! It _ees_ you!"

He let his straightened arms collapse, laying one on the rail top and resting his cheek on the fist of the other. His delighted grin appeared as he said in a kind way, "Good eeveneeng! Eet ees a lovely night, eesn't eet? I hope I deed not wake you up."

The impervious cheerful smile did not slip once as Spock released a heavy breath, mouth slightly opening as his glare made a short detour to a point next to where his grip briefly and unintentionally tightened on the rail.

After Spock had allowed himself some time to pinch back a few creeping flutters of emotion, he lifted his ever-somber eyes to the still brightly beaming Chekov.

"If I may ask, what is it exactly you are trying to accomplish?"

"Me? _Oh_, yehs! Yehs, I am ta-rying to geet the light off-"

"Something you have done successfully multiple times this evening."

"Hehe, yehs," a little chuckle stained with slight uncertainty escaped with the affirmation.

"Eenyways, I em also ta-rying to collapse dees pieces of furneetur," he waved the arm he'd been leaning on, indicating some tables and two chairs. "Like you 'ave done." The hand went back to supporting his cheek while he pointed with the other hand, sweeping across the air to bring Spock's attention to his own furniture-less balcony. "Onlee… we want to keep the chairs… Hikaru 'as been geetting eento asteronomee lately," he intoned with what could only be affection and let his eyes wonder to the night sky.

Spock's brows rose as he tilted his head in consideration of the statement and its somewhat incriminating delivery, then broke his neighbor's reverie, "As you have observed, I am proficient in operating the panel that controls the balconies. If you care for my assistance, I would-"

"Oh, yehs, thehnk you, Mr. Spock! Thehnk you wery much!" He scurried in as Spock called instructions over to him.

"The sprinklers will retract with the first button in the second row. The button to its right is the one that controls the door, the one over it controls the blinds. On the third row are the buttons that control the furniture: table, corner table, chair, chair," the tables folded in on themselves and dropped through the floor to hang, consolidated, underneath.

"Will that suffice, Mr. Chekov?"

"Eet ees _purfect_, Mr. Spock!" He came out again to bow graciously. "I cannot thehnk you enough."

"It was merely the logical thing to do."

Spock turned to re-enter his room, leaving a mildly puzzled Chekov behind, but paused.

"You need not mention me to Mr. Sulu. I hope the stars provide ample emotional fulfillment. Personally, I find them fascinating."

A bewildered and awed, "Thehnk you, Mr. Spock," barely escaped Chekov's lips and the corners of Spock's mouth lifted the most minute of measurements as he returned to his bed and eased back beneath the covers.

He carefully began to breath, four seconds up, four seconds down.

Five.

Six.

The smile deepened ever so, slightly as sleep relaxed his stony control.

Seven… eight… nine…

* * *

"Well if it isn't Sleeping Beauty come to pay us a visit," drawled McCoy over the top of his coffee cup as Spock entered the kitchen.

For his part, Spock dismissed the comment as one of the doctor's bizarre euphemisms that took many minutes to explain and a liftetime to find logical application for: in short, a waste of time and mental energy.

To that end he walked past McCoy, who was eying him expectantly, to stand near Kirk, who was preparing coffee for himself.

The captain cast his fridge-foraging friend one of his truly delighted sideways smirks and turned to exchange the look with McCoy.

The doctor's brows jumped up in the equivalent of a shrug and he busied himself with the news board, leaving Kirk to coax some sort of explanation out of the atypically tardy Vulcan.

"Did you sleep well, Mr. Spock?"

Without sparing Kirk a glance he responded with a nondescript, "Yes, captain. And yourself?"

"Oh, I slept excellently… Did you forget to set your alarm clock?"

"I have no need for an alarm clock, captain. My biorhythm is set to give me precisely six hours of rest. An unnecessary amount for a Vulcan," Spock closed the refrigerator and opened the freezer, search apparently fruitless, "but I have developed many unnecessary habits due to the great amount of time I spend living among humans."

"So it was just a late start, eh?" Kirk sipped his coffee and added another spoonful of sugar.

Spock gave one of his rare sighs, hands dropping temporarily to thighs, then shut the freezer.

"It is illogical to ask a question by asking every other question besides that to which you seek an answer."

Kirk peered innocently up from his task of stirring.

"Not sure what you mean, Spock,"

"I am," piped McCoy in his disarmingly blunt way. "Why're you up so late, Mr. Spock?" He idly scrolled to another page on the news board, "It's not in your character."

The idle hands rose slowly to cross behind his stiffly straight back as he opened his mouth pensively.

"An accurate evaluation, doctor. However, due to certain events my habitual six hours were broken up in such a way that I was required to raise at this later hour. If this has been an inconvenience to either of you, I apologize."

Spock turned at last from the fridge to find both conversation partners staring at him.

Kirk quickly shook his head in response to the implied question as Spock's even gaze swept over him and McCoy did the same under the grim scrutiny.

Spock nodded with an inclination of the head. "I see. In that case, I believe that should satisfy your curiosities-"

"No," Kirk said in an exhale of amusement as he sat, sipping his coffee, "it doesn't."

Spock sank grandly into the third seat, hands clasped on the table. A few beats passed in one part reflection to two parts anticipation before Spock said in the deliberate way that meant he was walking you through a string of logical conclusions, "You said you slept well, captain?"

"'Excellently' I think it was."

"And you, doctor?"

"Well, thank you for askin'."

"I see." Spock looked to the ceiling and let a measured silence pass before surprising both Kirk and McCoy by standing up and finding a mug with the clear intention of getting coffee, a never before witnessed event that won a deluge of questioning lip contortions and eyebrow raises between the latter two seated at the table.

In moments he was lowering himself into his chair again and then took a gulp of coffee that would have made Montgomery Scott fairly faint and forced McCoy to make an unconvincing cough out of an abrupt laugh.

He drew his mouth down and his eyebrows up, nodding at the mug in moderate approval.

"Fascinating… In any case, let me say only that our selection of rooms, in concern to obtaining the necessary length of sleep particularly, was," he paused to finish the other half of his coffee.

This time the nod was one of definite appreciation and the brows went down instead of up. "Surprisingly good."

"Come on! Out with it, Spock!" Kirk said, tickled but anxious for an answer.

"Ah, yes," he stood and made for the counter for a second cup, "our selection of rooms was 'wery' unfortunate."


	9. Another Space Seed

In which McCoy is irate and your beloved author crosses all kinds of lines in the realm of slash, all in the name of Sulu's hobbies.  


* * *

"Uh-huh, well, alright… Yes, I see, thank you very much for stopping by… Mm-hmm, yes… well, thank you so much, I'll be sure to pass that on… Yup… yes, indeed, yeah, you too… and thanks again!"

A rather taken aback McCoy let the door slide shut before collapsing against it with a breath of relief.

"Whew! I'll be damned if he didn't just talk me into next week…"

"Who was it, Bones?" Kirk emerged from his room sporting the infamous _Enterprise _boxers and a towel around his shoulders.

The doctor looked him up and down with a sharply skeptical eyebrow raised, stance switching from one of defeat to one of defense.

"Where d'ya think you're goin' in _that_?"

Kirk laughed, a sound so full of self-confidence and so impervious to outside doubt that it made McCoy's eye twitch slightly, and waved away his friend's accusing inquiry with an edge of the towel.

"Don't worry, Bones, I'm not going to go wreck havoc in the halls or anything. I'm just on my way to some breakfast."

He squinted the, the hunter on the prowl, and smartly smacked his less-than-washboard abs.

"Well, alright then," McCoy gradually took his weight off the door, eyes narrowed and trained on Kirk's retreating back, "but I'll have my eye on you. Can't ever be too sure-"

Spock's door slid open, surprising McCoy into a sudden silence.

The Vulcan, dressed and dry hair shining more than usual, raised his eyebrows as if to say "What are you looking at?" and attempted to walk down the hall.

The doctor, however, grabbed his arm at the elbow, opening his mouth in preparation to speak.

He fixed Spock's impenetrable ebon eyes with his own sharp blue, turning his head to the side slightly as he interrogated, "You heard my lovely chat with our good neighbor this morning, I assume."

"Negative, doctor. I was in the shower at the time." McCoy's brows furrowed in confusion. "But, the captain-"

"Yes," Spock lifted his brows in a somewhat self-conflicted way, turning his attention to the end of the hall. "I was initially opposed to his intrusion, but he pointed out and explained with surprising soundness the logic in conserving water as well as our mornings by using the washing facility at the same time."

"You mean to tell me you showered together?"

Spock blinked and cocked his head.

"I see no reason to raise your voice, doctor. And your synopsis is accurate, if unnecessary, as my account of the events was both very clear and in language I am sure you understand."

Spock glanced down at his elbow and then up to McCoy's incredulous (and rather scarlet) face, his solemn features heavy with incomprehension. "You are aware, doctor, that you're holding my arm with an intensity some would consider painful?"

The scowling physician quickly released the first officer, but Spock did not leave.

"I notice that you seem to be somewhat emotionally unsettled. I do not understand your reaction. It was merely the most logical-"

"'Emotionally unsettled'?"

McCoy stepped back, bristling as he stiffly brought a vindictive finger up, shaking it on especially vehemently pronounced syllables.

"'Logical'? I'll show you 'emotionally unsettled', Mr. Spock!"

He whirled on the spot and began storming off in the direction of the kitchen. "JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK! I hope you found some breakfast, boy, cause it damn well may be your last!"

Without warning, he made a rage-powered about face, lips twisted into a very sinister shell of a smile as he tossed something down the hall.

"Soap," he said grimly, clearly not amused at the irony of the situation, "from misters Chekov and Sulu. Apparently Mr. Sulu's recently gotten into soap-making as a hobby."

That said, he took off towards the kitchen again, his wrath shifting to the quiet and dangerous phase as Kirk appeared in the door, every detail of his presence sculpted to say "What did I do?".

McCoy herded Kirk back from whence he'd come, growling in a tone almost as intimidating as the record breaking height his eyebrows were reaching, "I was so worried about you causing trouble out and about, I forgot all you were capable of right _here_," and leaving Spock to retrieve the neatly and meticulously wrapped package from where it had landed a short ways in front of him.

With an appraising sniff, Spock nodded mildly in approval of the delicately poignant but nonabrasive scent and retraced his steps to put the unintentionally offensive gift of neighborly goodwill in a proper - and logical- location.

* * *

"I wonder what all the huffeeng and puffeeng ees about." Chekov managed between bites of rice from poorly managed chopsticks.

"I know…" Sulu regarded the far wall pensively, a slight pinch in his brow. "I hope it's not the soap… You don't think it was an offensive gift, do you?"

He turned worriedly to Chekov, absent-mindly reaching over to correct his grip on the foreign utensils as he continued, "I didn't mean to imply anything about their hygiene, I just thought it would be something nice-"

"Eet can't be the soap, Hikaru," Chekov said with comforting conviction. "Eet must be sometheeng else; you sehd the doctor reelly liked eet and I am shur-a they deed not theenk you were ta-rying to eensult them."

"Maybe," Sulu turned his attention to the general direction of their neighbors once more, expression still troubled. "All the same, I think I'll try something else tomorrow to make up for it… Perhaps I'll finish the macramé hammock I've got set up in the living room."

Chekov smiled encouragingly.

"That would be nice! Eet weel hold two people wery nicely, don't you theenk? Jeest purfect for you-know-who and you-know-who ehlse."

Sulu grinned brightly.

"Mr. Spock and the captain, right?"

Chekov's face fell.

"I do not theenk so…" he intoned carefully.

"Who then?" Sulu put his hands on his hips, challenging. "Didn't you always notice how they would exchange a certain look sometimes? And how Mr. Spock always was looking out for the captain? And how the captain always defended Mr. Spock when-"

"Yehs, but I…" Chekov turned his head to the side slightly, " I alwehs thought the capteen was too eenterested een weemen and-"

"But don't you see? It's the perfect cover up!"

"I alwehs thought the doctur…"

"What about him?"

"He and Mr. Spock were alwehs fighteeng… I thought it had to meen something…"

Sulu raised his hands and let them flop from the wrist, dismissing the supposition.

"No, no, no. You've got it all wrong, Pavel-kun. Just because people fight doesn't mean they like each other secretly."

Chekov drew himself up, shoulder by shoulder.

"Well how wood _you_ know? Leesten to you, talkeeng about 'the purfect cover' and all that. Ees fighteeng not the purfect cover ahlso? Hm? Yehs? No?"

Sulu sighted, regarding his roommate with a firm stare of disbelief.

"Really, Pavel-kun. Really?"

"Okay, okay! We weel see how eet goes. I weel show you."

"Who knows? Maybe we're both wrong. We really shouldn't be making assumptions like this anyways," Sulu shrugged, smile returning. "They're probably just all really good friends."

Chekov smiled too, mouth lifting at one corner. "Are you keeding? Ta-ree men leeving together? Someteeng must be going on…"

"Well, we're two men living together. Does that mean something's going on here?"

Silence fell quickly and instantly on the pair and an intense staring match began; Chekov pulling his head back thoughtfully, eyes scanning slowly back and forth across Sulu's face, and Sulu staring back, hands loosening their hold on the back of his abandoned seat and eyes flicking to the side every now and then.

The pause, somewhat predictably, broke with both of them laughing at the mutually concluded ridiculousness of it all.

"Ahh… _that_ was wery funny…"

"Haha, yeah, I'm going to go get to work now!"

Sulu clapped once and raised his eyebrows eagerly. "I think I'll undo a few rows so I can add on and make it wider."

"A wond-ehrful idea!" Chekov called after the helmsman. "I weel take care of the deeshes."

True to his word, the navigator began collecting the remnants of a heartily enjoyed if somewhat difficult to consume breakfast, lifting dishes and cutlery with an entirely unnecessary but trademark Chekov flair and energy.

"Ah, yehs… two," he leaned his head to the right, "ees okay, but ta-ree," he let his head loll slowly to the left with a knowing smile before shaking his head and lifting the stack of dishes, "ta-ree meens someteeng eentirely deefferent."


	10. Bunking

In which Kirk continues to cross lines and McCoy joins the fun.

* * *

The only similarities between vampires and Vulcans are orthographic, but as a flash of lightning blasted an austere, thin face in sharp horizontal lines and dark eyes flashed open under eternally slanted brows, Spock could easily have been mistaken for the infamous Dracula himself. Heavy raindrops battered the balcony window as he calmly allowed comprehension and control to reassimilate with his extremities. Facts assembled themselves at a languid pace and another flash of cosmic electricity illuminated his head and piercing gaze as both turned to the left. Before the light faded to pelting precipitation he made out a familiar set of features that were curiously out of place.

"Jim?" Kirk paused in his settling, looking up slowly to where he imagined Spock's face must be, mouth slightly open and a faint glare forming in response to his apprehension. He held his body still, halfway hoping his intrusion would pass unnoticed under the cover of the thunderstorm's distracting background noise. A hand met his side and then his shoulder and against all hope he bit his lower lip and held his breath. "Jim," Spock repeated in his gravely, unused voice. The breath was released and Kirk finished wiggling under the sheets to lie beside the Vulcan.

"Hey, Spock, sorry if I woke you," he whispered vaguely before turning to his side and facing away from the questioning stare invisible in the darkness. Spock watched an arm extend upon a smuggled pillow and another reach across Kirk's torso from his position flat on his back, head twisted for observation. Light slit through the window blinds across the comfortable yet all the same uninvited form of the captain. He raised his eyebrows. Blinked. He propped himself up on an elbow, increasingly perturbed by the total lack of explanation.

"Jim," he fumbled slightly for the absolutely most efficient wording, "can I assist you with something?" Kirk shifted slightly in response, as if he held the miraculous hope that Spock would believe him to be asleep after a mere sixty-eight second period since he'd last spoken. Perhaps the most logical action in this situation was indeed to simply swap beds, but having made concessions with communal showering against his better judgment, his peculiar Vulcan stubbornness compelled him to pursue interrogation before accepting intentional bed sharing. "Jim," he spoke with tactfully low volume, "you are awake." His determined glare focused unwaveringly on the inactive shadow of the captain; thunder purred ominously in the relentlessly pitch black outdoors. "I am giving you, graciously, the opportunity to explain yourself, opening the possibility for assistance, but if not taken, encouraging me to desert my quarters in favor of a more private environment." Lightning cracked, revealing Kirk as he turned to lie on his back, exhaling resignedly and fixing a troubled gaze on the ceiling.

"Fair enough, Mr. Spock," he breathed morosely, as if such a request was painfully unreasonable and cost him much that was not due. The precisely ten seconds allowed for unprompted explanation were unused. Spock rose his eyebrows grimly, glancing aside as the apartment building quaked from now aggressively rumbling thunder.

"Jim…" he grappled once more with appropriate phrasing, noting his consistent failure thus far to reply swiftly and assuredly with considerable incomprehension. "Your company is generally unobjectionable, but the circumstances are most definitely so. I cannot perceive logical motives for waking late in the night and forsaking one's bed for one occupied by a dormant second party, effectively disrupting the rest and comfort of multiple people at a time when mental capabilities are commonly less than functional." Temporary brightness threw long shadows across the quiet space. "My initial conjectures are flawed. If a fracture was permitting the precipitation to dampen your sleeping materials, my knowledge of your character indicates that you would resourcefully amend the issue individually. If you were unfortunate enough to harbor a fear of thunderstorms or their components, I would predict a stoic suffering in silence or an appeal to doctor McCoy rather than to myself. Or if you-"

"What if I was just lonely, Spock, what then?" the blinds quivered audibly as the cycles of the storm repeated. "What if… my room felt too empty, and my… my heart beat was the only thing I could hear?" Kirk broke his stare down with the drab popcorn-ed ceiling to assess Spock's darkly silhouetted form to his right. He chuckled quietly. "You're raising your eyebrows." The statement was validated by a fleeting brightness through streaming glass doors.

"You apparently understand my tendencies more completely than I do yours, captain." Kirk resisted communicating that Spock was now barely lifting the corners of his mouth in his version of a smile. "Given your hypothetical situation, I would have incorrectly projected you to remain awake, finding an engaging activity to preoccupy your disquieted mind." At the end of this statement, Spock had finished readjusting himself in a position identical to Kirk's, the two of them shoulder to shoulder matching the width of the mattress to hundredths of centimeters. The patter of pelting droplets replaced conversation for minutes that consciously went uncounted. Kirk cringed apprehensively as the intimidating chill that accompanied "the accusatory eyebrow raise" caused him to tighten his grip on the coverlet. "You know the new password?" Spock angled has face towards the outline of Kirk's profile. The wary bed guest relaxed with the voicing of the pending query.

"No," he replied calmly, "the power's out; I slid it open." The pair squinted against the blare of lightning as they lapsed again into silence. Spock, easily adapting to such crowded conditions as his normal dormant position was unchanged, closed his eyes lightly, methodically dismantling thoughts in preparation for repose. Kirk, however, mouthed soundlessly in contemplation for several moments before half closing his eyes with contentment. "It's Leonard." In turn, Spock remained perfectly stationary and unresponsive. An arm flopped encouragingly, back of the hand nailing his abdomen sharply, reflexes forcing his eyelids to part as a breath huffed with an abbreviated exit. "Isn't it?"

"The password?"

"Yes…" Spock shut his eye gradually and purposefully.

"You prove yet again the disadvantages of logical approaches. They can be deduced."

"Don't worry, Spock," Kirk turned to his side, voice straining from exertion, "you're getting much more flexible." Kirk's smile cracked into hushed laughter in anticipation of the oncoming lecture.

"Most fortunately-"

_Thunk thunk thunk!_

The captain twisted his shoulders to view the door joining he and Spock's rooms and the Vulcan shifted his steady glare in the same direction.

"James Tiberius _Kirk_," the evidently undampened by sleep hiss of who could be no one but the good doctor himself followed the knocks with equal force. "What the _hell_ are you doing in there- I've been talking to an empty room for a good forty-five minutes and I- god damned! Just wait till I get this blasted-" a crack of lightning threw a rapidly blinking and stumbling McCoy into relief as his full body weight sent the door ricocheting in its tracks. The strained mattress compressed to new lows as a third party shoved himself under the sheets with no hesitation, mouth running all the while. "I couldn't get to sleep what with all the _rain_, and _stormin'_, and," Spock turned to his side with three cautious movements, "I called your name about forty hundred times before I got up and saw you weren't to be found in your _own_ place, so I searched the whole damn apartment until-"

"Bones," the agitated MD cut himself off immediately, mouth paused forming the next word of his rant. Kirk reached an arm over Spock to grasp McCoy's shoulder, yawning as much for emphasis as for a need, "Here I am, here we _all_ are… Let's just let well enough alone and go to sleep before the sun comes up."

"Which is what I was _tryin'_ to do in the first place!" McCoy sardined up close, resting his forehead between Spock's shoulder blades irritably. The thunder trembled mutely, herding the storm through the atmosphere. Kirk scooted in until his back touched Spock's hands before pulling his pillow down into a loose grip.

"Night, all." Rain clouds remained to drip peacefully against the balcony doors. Spock nuzzled his section of pillow vigorously, shrugging the blankets onto his shoulders with minimal motions. Someone sighed deeply and covertly. McCoy adjusted his limbs, mouth twitching in residual agitation.

"I don't know… you got a spare salet or something?" The bed shook as Kirk chuckled sleepily.

"For?"

"Never mind, Spock… just… get on to sleeping."

"With your permission, doctor," McCoy punched him lightly in the back, but made no vicious reply. The room counted a lulling silence as several pairs of eyes opened or shut, legs straightened or bent, hands folded or reached, or backs curved forward or back.

"Spock," Kirk spoke with dreamlike delicacy, "your heart is beating on my elbow."

"Jim, I believe it is easier for you to relocate your joint than for me to relocate my internal organs."

"Oh, I never said I minded, Spock."

"Good night, Jim." The thunder was now no more threatening than the sounds of light breathing beginning to settle in the room.

The chatter he could perhaps do without, but the extra body heat was something Spock found quite agreeable.


	11. The Enemy Without

In which a lethal foe is confronted and defeated, grace a Bones!Fierce.

* * *

Spock glanced up from the handheld news screen to see Kirk on the edge of the opposite side of the living room couch, obviously taking one of his frequent (five so far) unpacking breaks. He sipped orange juice from a short plastic glass, set it on the once laundry covered coffee table, and leaned back into the couch cushions, aimlessly pushing the communications panel buttons installed in the arm of the sofa. Spock sipped severely from his coffee mug, eyeing the back of Kirk's head with deserved consternation, but abruptly paused the lowering of his beverage as something distressing caught his attention.

"Jim," the captain was only halfway rotated towards his summoner before Spock had gripped his arm tightly and dragged him across a seat cushion and a half.

"Hey, Spock, easy- what are you-" fingers parted the short brown hairs at the top of his neck, barely behind his right ear.

"Doctor, come quickly," Kirk attempted to turn his head, curiosity heightened by Spock's alarmed tone, as McCoy prowled in from the kitchen, dusting rag in hand. There was a fly that he'd been chasing since breakfast that neither Spock nor Kirk was admitting had been permitted entry by his balcony. He absentmindedly placed Kirk's drinking glass on a crocheted coaster (courtesy of the neighbors, specifically Sulu) and grumbled,

"What's the matter, Spock, what's got you so ruffled?" Firm hands twisted Kirk's neck towards McCoy, earning an unnecessary wince.

"Look." The doctor leaned closer, squinting at the indicated patch of skin.

"Wooooee, Jim, would you look at that!" Spock released the captain from his restrictive grasp and he fixed McCoy with a befuddled expression.

"What, Bones, what is it?" he ran a nervous hand over the prodded area. McCoy put his hands on his hips ad smirked lopsidedly, waving the rag at Kirk as he spoke,

"You've got a good old-fashioned tick hangin' on to ya, Jim. It's been ages since I've seen one of those devils." He headed for the bathroom as he continued, "I'll just get a pair of tweezers and get 'im-"

"Tweezers?" McCoy paused, turning back to find a mortified Kirk staring at him from the couch.

"Jim, what's-"

"Please, Bones, there must be another way."

"Well, sure, Jim, but I'm just gonna pluck 'im right off-"

"Bones," Kirk lifted his hands to his face, shaking them slightly in what looked to be panic, "please, there's got to be another way." McCoy returned to the couch, perplexed by this blatant terror.

"Jim," he turned his head slightly, blinking with concern at the pleading captain, "it's just a tick. There's some high tech stuff to remove 'em, but we'd have to run to the store and buy it and I can just as easily remove it now with the tools we have." Spock looked discreetly from the horrified Kirk to the confused doctor, quietly watching the drama unfold. "Jim," McCoy put a hand on Kirk's shoulder, "what're you so afraid of?" The usually composed captain swallowed seriously and stared grimly up to his comforter.

"I don't like ticks, Bones, they just aren't right," McCoy arched an eyebrow attentively, "their looks, their- their parasitical life style, their ethics-"

"Okay, we're still talkin' about bugs here, Jim, easy on the philosophy." The doctor seated himself on the arm of the chair conversationally. "I understand there's some degree of trauma involved, but you're mature and reasonable enough to understand that these things aren't victimizing you. there's not some," he waved a hand around vaguely, "tick conspiracy that's targeted you to exterminate, I mean," Kirk continued gazing with inconsolable discomfort at his orating friend, "you just coincidentally passed by this little fella and he jumped ya." McCoy's patience wore thin as he noted the unchanged expression of mistrust and mild horror displayed by his conversation partner.

"Is it really coincidence, doctor?" McCoy's eyes twitched and his mouth opened slightly in disbelief.

"Jim, what're ya-"

"I'd rather keep it on me than suffer its removal, Bones, I'm serious."

"Give me a good cotton pickin' reason and we'll-"

"It's going to hurt," Kirk gripped the doctor's wrist imploringly.

"For God's _sake_, Jim, you'd think you were a three year-old!"

"Bones, _please-_" McCoy slapped the dusting rag on the coffee table, standing as he exclaimed,

"I'm your doctor, Jim, and I prescribe removal of the damn tick, and by God, I'm going to do it too!" He marched purposefully towards the bathroom again, leaving a devastated Kirk.

"Please, Bones-" McCoy spun around, pointing wrathfully.

"Eh! Doctor's orders! Stay _right_ there!" He disappeared into Kirk's room (in which the only bathroom was located) with an infuriated finality. Kirk moaned piteously, sinking into despair as he buried his face in his hands. Spock rose silently and followed the doctor to assist in the hunt for the doubtless still packed death sentence of a tool.

* * *

Kirk refused to look up at McCoy entering the kitchen or Spock, close in tow. The two exchanged significant glances, one with an exasperated tint and the other as intently focused as ever. McCoy positioned himself behind the mournful captain with uncontainable sympathy. He squeezed one of the dolefully slumped shoulders amiably encouraging,

"Show a little faith, darlin'; I'm a doctor not an undertaker. I bet you won't even _feel_ it." Spock regarded McCoy once more before taking a kitchen chair facing Kirk. He blinked meditatively, looked up to Kirk's down-turned face, looked at his hands flopped dejectedly in his lap, looked up again, and finally slowly extended one of his hands to envelop the patient's, bringing both up to rest on the table. He sighed with careful measure, glancing up at McCoy with a touch of uncertainty. The doctor, approaching the extraction site with much flitting of hands and squinting caught the Vulcan eye and barely smirked as he gave an exaggerated wink. Spock pursed his lips before raising his free hand and carefully guiding Kirk's head to rest on his shoulder. Once more he looked up at the doctor for approval and received a wordless "okay", complete with circled forefinger and thumb gesture along with vigorous nodding. Spock focused on the oven range resignedly as McCoy commented casually, "No, I doubt you'll feel a thing, Jim boy, now tell me," he delicately parted the well trimmed hair surrounding the objectionable passenger, "did ya get traumatized by ticks when you were young or is this just a phobia?"

"Well," Kirk spoke up morosely from his protected resting place, "there was a neighborhood dog I adored-"

"You strike me as a dog person-"

"and he'd just roam free so of course he'd get loads of ticks on him-"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh-"

"and I was alright with that, until this one summer-" McCoy gave Spock a sharp nod and he obligingly stroked the back of his charge's head soothingly.

"This one summer, eh?"

"Yes, this one summer, I don't know why it hadn't happened before, but this one summer I was playing in the hose in the yard and my mom came out-" McCoy squinted,

"Did she now," and walked to the sink.

"Yes, and I'd been playing with the dog earlier. She said, 'Jim, come here a second,' so I went. And she turned me around really carefully and I said, 'What, what is it?' because she was getting this really troubled look, hand over her mouth and all that. And she said, 'Jim, come inside, you're covered in ticks'. And all of sudden… I started itching. And I… I looked down… and I was _covered_ in the things. It took," McCoy walked back to the chair and set the tweezers down, "three hours to get them off-"

"Well, I'll be, Jim-" Kirk nodded against Spock's shoulder,

"yes, three hours of unending pain."

"Well," McCoy smacked his patient heartily on the back, "I was right, ya sure didn't feel a thing." Kirk sat upright abruptly.

"What?" He turned to face a widely grinning doctor. "Bones, did you-"

"Yep," Kirk stared incredulously at the discarded tweezers, "it's been dead in the sink for, how long would you say, Spock?"

"Sixty-three point two five seconds."

"I'll take that," McCoy nodded smartly. A smile rapidly illuminated Kirk's features and he jumped to his feet, gripping McCoy's arms excitedly.

"My God, Bones, you _are_ a magician!" The doctor laughed, dismissing the flattery with an absentminded wave, raising his eyebrows and inclining his head behind Kirk, saying,

"You better thank your nurse, too, Jim." Spock crossed his arms und leaned back in the chair, meeting Kirk's grateful gaze imperiously.

"Thank you, Spock," Kirk beamed, sparing him a friendly embrace. Spock arched his eyebrows and bobbed his head twice.

"Acknowledged. Next time, however, I think I'll simplify matters with a nerve pinch."


	12. Floor Plan

In which Spock makes a home video for our benefit and certainly not fan girl viewing pleasure.

* * *

_Beep-beep beep beep beep_. Spock raised his eyebrows in appraisal before crossing his arms behind his back, concealing the minute remote controller for the video recorder in doing so.

"Greetings, potential audience, Spock here. It has come to my attention that readers, being unaware of our apartment layout, may occasionally struggle to clearly conceptualize certain scenes. To this end-"

"Bones, have you seen my razor?"

"I shall endeavor to verbally establish a distinct image of our recently acquired apartment building in this self-filmed entre-episode. Presently, I am standing in the doorway through which one enters from the hall into our home. See behind me a second doorway accessible with six backwards steps. This is the entrance to the captain's bedroom. Raise your right hand as I am doing, and form your hand into a shape resembling a semi-circle or backwards letter 'C'. This is roughly the shape of this place, our entry room, from which all three of the bedrooms may be accessed. The back of your hand is the approximate location of the main door, the palm that of the captain's door, your thumb that of mine, and your four fingers that of the doctor's, all from an aerial view. In other words, facing the walls between our rooms and the corridor, four paces to the right and four away from the hall wall lead to my bedroom's entrance while four to the left and four away lead to the doctor's. I am currently in front of the latter and will indicate a protruding wall to my left, which allows for an unimpeded entrance into the living room. That is to say-"

"Phasers on _stun_! Where the hell is it?"

"the wall to the utmost left of the doctor's room extends within one point two five meters of the hall wall creating a means of entry into the living room, which I am now entering. It constitutes nearly a quarter of our rectangular apartment and contains a view screen on the wall opposite the hall and a sofa positioned to provide seated individuals a view of the aforementioned screen. Note the impressive lack of laundry, in contrast to the pitiable cluster of unpacked boxes residing optimally impermanently in the far left corner, poorly concealed behind the couch. As we continue the tour, this pattern of pseudo cleanliness will become evident. I am now turning away from the hall wall and entering the kitchen through an entry identical to the one joining the entry hall to the living room. Due to the lack of standard doorways, all living room activity is visible from adjoining spaces, as you may have observed in previous episodes. In the kitchen, facing the wall between our rooms and the outdoors, to my right is extensive cabinetry along with conventional kitchen appliances. The cabinet's reach along most of the three walls to my right with the rectangular kitchen table in the center of the room, accommodating dining facilities. A digital calendar is installed on the side of the upper cabinets, which are attached to the outdoor wall. Leaving the kitchen with a left turn, I enter Dr. McCoy's quarters, the outdoor wall to my right and his door leading to the entry hall to the left. A window, presently closed, allows a view to the outdoors available in the other bedrooms via balconies. I am now departing to briefly familiarize you with the captain's bedroom; prepare for unnecessarily loud background conversation."

"Jim, is this- no…"

"The doctor's voice, as you just heard, issued from the doorway to my right, the solitary bathroom of our home. It is inaccessible save by entry into the captain's room and, quite illogically, contains a doorway leading to a balcony of identical width with the room. On the whole, the bathroom is the most objectionable component of our apartment, inconveniently located and with questionable adjoining spaces."

"Hang on- hang on- is this i-"

"BY STAR FLEET! Thank you, Bones, where in the galaxy was it?"

"To my left is the before seen doorway into the entry hall, and before me is the door to my room, which I am now entering. To my left is the access to the entry hall, and to my right is a balcony, a similar layout to the two rooms previously seen. Crossing the room I reach a wall which separates our apartment from that of Mr.'s Chekov and Sulu. Theirs is a mirror image to ours, their shared bedroom through my bedroom wall, a door exactly next to the one I am exiting by, and an entry hall of exact dimensions adjoining ours, in which I stand. All other rooms are arranged accordingly in a replica of our room. Four steps to my left brings us, once again, to our threshold by which one accesses our home. I expect some degree of clarification has been effected by my explanation of the floor plan and do not doubt its future use with proper application. On a parting note, I encourage questions to be asked to myself or one of my cohabitants if incomprehension afflicts you, and I assure you that I volunteered to make this recording: this was not fan service in any way, shape, or form. Spock-"

_Whssh!_ Kirk, towel tied around his waist, made use of the door between his room and the hallway, appearance prompting a dismal glance from the Vulcan, thoroughly unprepared for this interruption.

"Hey, Spock, uh…what're you doing?" He returned a dark gaze to the camera and raised the remote. "Oh- oh! I remember, you were going to film that-"

"Spock out."

_Beep-beep beep beep beep_.


	13. Sugar

The last chapter, in which Bones is far from a morning person, an epic journey is taken to the grocery store, and yet another member of the crew appears.

* * *

"Bones? Is that you?"

Kirk peered groggily into the kitchen where the first suggestions of dawn were beginning to trickle in through the open blinds and light the house.

An emotive but incomprehensible string of mumbling returned from the recesses of the room signaling that it was indeed the doctor as Kirk, in all his intergalactic travels, had never encountered any other life form capable of replicating McCoy's morning dialect.

Kirk nodded scratching his back and still squinting while his eyes adjusted to the light.

With slight clumsiness due to yet to be intact reflexes, the captain pulled out a chair for himself and sat roughly, taking time to stretch before pressing further, "Why're you up so early?"

"Hmm-mm-hum-mpff-breakfast-mmp-harumph-storm-couldn't sleep-mm-umph-you know how it is-grrmph."

Kirk nodded heavily, clearly struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Yup. It was a rough night… say, is that coffee?"

"Harumph."

"Oh, excellent! Thank you, Bones." Though Kirk's remark seemed to indicate an intention to fetch some of the quested-after liquid, he remained stationary, leaning back in his chair and allowing his limbs to go completely lax before snapping to attention suddenly awake.

"You seen Spock yet?"

"Harum-mm-_no_-grrmph-mph-grrmph."

"I am right here, captain."

"There he is, Jim. I found him." The doctor's first fully comprehensible statement of the morning was still sluggish and gravelly in delivery as well as relatively nonsensical and therefore went ignored by his well-adjusted roommates.

Kirk threw an amused smirk over his shoulders to where the doctor was for the second time that morning, moving all the dishes from one side of the sink to the other before turning to the blank looking Vulcan, inquiring in elevated volume, "I was wondering, Spock, if some emergency groceries were in the budget?"

A raised brow prompted the captain to continue, "While plundering our stores last night I realized we were lacking some essentials that any bachelor, never mind three, should be ashamed to not have in his icebox."

"There-"

"GaRUMPH-harum-mph."

The interjection, accompanied by a clatter of dishes as a pot was inserted where it did not fit, earned a mildly alarmed lift of slanted brows and rare widening of melancholic eyes as Spock continued deliberately, "There are funds available for such purchases, though I question your use of the word 'essentials'-"

"Very good, Mr. Spock!" Kirk broadcasted his confidence in a slow smile. "You'll understand my choice of noun when you see exactly what I have in mind."

With another over the shoulder look, Kirk guided Spock out to the living room while adding in a confidential tone, "Let's hurry and go now… give our little resident morning glory some time alone to get all his grunts and grumbles out."

Spock stopped abruptly, lifting his eyes to the ceiling.

"'Let's', meaning 'let us' implying the plural, thus referring to two or more individuals. Captain," the upturned face came sharply down and to the side, flinty eyes boring into a magnificently manufactured expression of innocence, "am I to assume that the second individual necessary to make your command in the plural applicable to our current situation is myself?"

The overwhelmingly beseeching aura Kirk masterfully created was slightly punctured by the first of a series of metallic clangs that signaled a third great migration of dishware, courtesy of the good doctor.

"Please, Spock? Please?"

An upward cut of the eyes under questioning brows clearly displayed the degree to which the Vulcan found Kirk's pleas unconvincing.

Seeing the swiftly plummeting chances for success, Kirk went to his consistent last resort in dealing with his first officer, "Is it not logical to accompany me to ensure I stay on task and under budget?"

The dead set opposition began to slip from Spock's heavy features and Kirk eagerly went for the kill.

"And, besides, you won't be able to get anything done here with _that_," a particularly abrasive explosion of colliding eating materials came most opportunely at precisely the right moment in Kirk's rhetoric, "going on, will you?"

Again, dark eyes made a detour to the ceiling as the grim line of Spock's mouth broke in reluctant acceptance, "Affirmative, captain."

* * *

"Oooh! Are those peaches?"

Had Spock had any less Vulcan blood running through his veins he very well may have suffered serious injuries to his foot, but, as it was, his alien reflexes allowed him to step out of the path of Kirk's grocery cart as he swerved to the right without any warning and at an alarming speed.

As the Vulcan warily followed his captain's haphazard path, something close to regret settled firmly into his neutral expression, Kirk passionately grabbed a fruit sniffed it by the stem as if the scent was water and he a stranded desert traveler.

"Aah…" the deep exhale was cut short as Kirk, with his disconcerting perceptiveness that seemed to be triggered by exciting circumstances, such as the one at hand, held the produce centimeters from Spock's face without ever removing his intense stare from the other peaches.

"Here, smell."

Several beats passed as Spock eyed the fruit like it was a blatantly incorrect arithmetic equation before Kirk looked up, still in his intense mode, and bent his brows slightly, clearly aware that his command was yet to be obeyed.

Staring steadily back, Spock performed a listless sniff and then raised his eyebrows as Kirk lowered the fruit, expression shifting to one of expectance.

"It smells like a peach, captain."

"No, Spock!"

Kirk turned with maudlin sharpness, clutching the fruit at waist height and studying it so intently he almost looked pained. A much more softly spoken echo of the previously half-shouted statement slipped from his lips as he made an about face of the same theatrical quality.

"No, Spock… it smells like sweaty children in sprinklers and dusty hopscotch boards where cute little girls with pigtails play until dinner is called by their mothers, draped in sundresses like Greek goddesses and hair curling in the heat, and sandwiches cut diagonally - no crusts - beside a glass of lemonade and sneaking out of the house because you're a teen-aged boy and that's your job, just to see your friends and swap comic boards as through it were something illegal."

Kirk stared up to the zenith of the high ceiling, voice dropping in volume from the height it had reached in the course of his soaring oratory.

"No, it smells like catching fireflies in jam jars and racing neighborhood dogs even when you know you can't win and all the out dated technology people pulled out of their garages and tried to get rid of in yard sales."

The wave of hair that was perpetually battling gravity to stay in its meticulously shaped curve over Kirk's forehead lost its struggle in face of Kirk's fervor, flopping limply over his glare-wrinkled brow.

He bobbed his head, staring directly to Spock's left before jerking his attention back to the peach which was, miraculously, unmaimed.

"The very essence of summer…" the whispered conclusion of questionable completeness was allowed a generous amount of time to sink into the unattending air of the grocery store before Spock's low voice stamped it out of its lingering existence.

"Captain, forgive me for interrupting, but we have thirty items in our cart so far, none of which are on the list of ten items that you composed for me in the transportation unit."

Spock gave one of his paradoxically lax stressed faces, brows creeping up and mouth collapsing piteously at the corners. As the captain blinked himself back into the reality of him standing with his first officer in the middle of the produce section dictating to peaches, Spock scanned a short distance to Kirk's right, mouth opening cautiously as he deliberated over diction.

The solemn lips closed as he rotated his head the forty-five degrees necessary to leave him, again facing the captain and he spoke the carefully composed observation he'd been forming, "It would seem as though our task here is either already completed and we are wasting time, or that it is yet to be finished and we are merely being inefficient."

"Yes, I see… Thank you, Mr. Spock, for that," Kirk made a full body turn, shaking the peach as he fished for the end of his sentence, "analysis of the situation."

The fist with the furry fruit continued, as if carried by tangential acceleration from the rotational motion of the captain, coming to rest at Spock's abdomen.

Instinctively, Spock brought his hands to Kirk's and looked down. The solemnity of his conversation was shattered by a bright smile from Kirk that Spock caught as he glanced up in slight confusion.

Kirk dropped the peach into the Vulcan's palms and turned for a final time to make his way to the end of the row, commanding, "Get five more of those for me, will you, Mister Spock? I'll bring you one of the containing units."

After a hard stare at the ceiling, Spock commenced doing what he'd been doing since he and the captain first met: following orders that went against his better judgment.

When Kirk returned with a self-satisfied smirk and the promised cylindrical container, Spock had completed his selection and inserted the produce through the top of the proffered containing unit before taking it from the captain and placing it firmly in the cart.

"Jim, permission to make a proposal."

"Spock… we've discussed this whole 'bridge jargon' thing before… we're not on board the _Enterprise_, I'm not your captain, and you're not my first officer," Kirk angled his head down, but kept his eyes trained on Spock, "we're equals now and I expect you to act like it. I don't like operating on an uneven playing field in a situation geared to partners with the same amount of power and say-so."

A winning smirk immediately injected some humor into the stiff ambiance, "And don't think just calling me 'Jim' instead of 'captain' is sufficient."

Kirk let his visage rise purposefully until his neck was again straight, still never releasing the unperturbed Vulcan from his anticipatory scrutiny.

A measured blink broke the silence. "I will make every effort to rectify the situation, Jim. Is permission granted or denied?"

Kirk deflated in momentary defeat, making a mental note to bring this up later, and then said on a mildly melodramatic exhale, "Permission granted, what's your proposal?"

"That we split up," Spock produced the small note board Kirk had scrawled his grocery list on and ran a finger down the items, "some of these items, such as ice cream," Kirk allowed himself a small chuckle at the Vulcan's rather disapproving tone used on the last two words, "are located on the other side of the store. As we have already lost half an hour as I continue to speak, I believe it advisable to spend the rest of our time more efficiently."

Spock's features arranged themselves to create an expression Kirk was all too familiar with from many similar lectures of logic in the past, "I can say, with complete confidence, that the doctor will begin to wonder if we don't return within the next ninety minutes."

A wave of agitated realization passed over Kirk's face as the unpleasant and potentially dangerous truth of this statement sunk in.

"True, very true… Alright," the man of shorter stature but towering presence ended his vague concurrences as he slid smoothly into the commanding mode so deeply integral to his character, "I'll continue from this direction and meet you somewhere in the middle. You can keep the list and take the cart-"

"It would be more logical for you to keep the cart, Jim, as I will be passing the receptacle on my way to the frozen foods."

Kirk bowed his head in acknowledgement and made a broad gesture at nothing in particular. "Very well, I'll keep the cart, okay… See you in a few minutes," with more force than necessary, Kirk took off with the cart and Spock began towards the opposite end of the row with a purposeful stride, but a call from behind stopped his progress.

"Spock, by the way," the captain was grinning in an almost subtle manner, "nice touch with the 'Jim". We're making steps in the right direction."

Predictably, the angled brows lifted.

"Thank you, captain."

With an inappropriately loud burst of laughter from Kirk and an equally incongruously further lift of the corners of Spock's mouth, the pair parted ways.

* * *

The rather massive selection of frozen confections ended up posing more of a problem than Spock had anticipated and so it was with a brisk gait that the Vulcan proceeded to the next row with a carton of Neapolitan, the most logical selection, in his cart. A quick consultation of the list revealed that his next item was corn chips.

Spock, a glare of concentration shadowing his features, tensed at the sight of the three row high and approximately five and a quarter meter long space devoted to chip brands. With little to no optimism he studied the untidy column of foodstuffs on the note board in case there were any specifics, but the search was as fruitless as expected.

The Vulcan narrowed his eyes and began, as he had done with the ice cream, to scan each and every chip offered in search for the most logical choice. The level of focus in Spock's scanning was such that he was only dimly aware of obstacles in his path, fellow shoppers and inanimate objects alike.

Because of the intensity involved in his task, Spock did not take particular interest in the fact that he had come to stand directly behind a shorter object. From this point he was able to see all the options and, arms crossed, began the process of narrowing down the selection, discarding inferior brands mentally and skipping over them when he swept his eyes down the row.

He was deliberating between three brands when the bag he had been studying toppled off the shelf and the object in front of him emitted a high-pitched noise of human surprise, shattering his train of thought with unusual effectiveness.

Without the slightest interval of time spent on thinking, Spock reached out and caught the bag, suddenly aware of his surroundings as if he had just woken from a dream.

He looked down.

"Oh, thank you, s-" the relieved expression of gratitude died on the lips of the petite creature caught between Spock, the wall of chips, and the raised arms that had prevented the bag from crashing to the tiled floor.

Wide, dark eyes met curious ones of the same color. After a beat of surprised silence, Spock said simply, "Nyota."

"M-mr. Spock!" Uhura shrank back at first, having never before been so very deep in the Vulcan's rather imposing personal bubble, but, upon bumping into the row and then looking up at the still aloft bag, a smile spread smoothly across her face.

Radiating delight, she lunged forward and hugged the first officer's abdomen in a burst of unrestrained affection.

Spock placed the bag on the top shelf with one arm and, as logic dictated that the lieutenant would not be letting go soon, returned the embrace with the other.

Still sparkling with her impish joy, Uhura looked up to her savior and finished her thanks, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Spock, thank you so much!"

"It was the logical thing to do," Spock let his arms return to their usual position behind his back as Uhura released him, happiness undampened by the mechanical response to exultation.

"I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Spock! I can't believe you're here, in a grocery store of all places."

"I most certainly am. Though I understand your meaning; I too have doubted the logic of my being here on multiple occasions during the course of this trip."

Uhura giggled, "Oh, sugar, you haven't changed one bit!"

"Acknowledged. You will find that the captain's character remains stiffly in tact as well."

Spock raised his brows as Uhura's expression opened in a full-body inhale of surprise and then lit up at an even higher level of giddiness.

"The captain's here? Where is he?"

Spock pointed at the far wall, indicating some unknown location on that side of the store.

The lieutenant turned back from the direction of his gesture as he explained, "Hopefully he is making his way towards us even as we speak, though it would not startle me in the least if he were exactly where I left him reminiscing to raspberries."

If the latter part of Spock's statement confused her, she hid it behind a warm smile.

"Well, I'm so glad we ran into each other! I've missed you all so much! Where are you two staying these days?"

"Jim and I are sharing an apartment with doctor McCoy currently. The complex is directly down route alpha-160 and-"

"Off beta-70-"

"Two and a half miles off beta-70, to be precise-"

"Sugar!" Uhura gently hit Spock's arm, "that's where my place is!" She blinked in her regally measured way, mouth ajar and still bent upwards in disbelief and excitement, "What floor are you on?"

Spock answered flatly and instantly as though reciting multiplication tables, gaze trained a few centimeters above Uhura's head, "Floor three, room 200569-"

"_Sugar_!" Another bat to the elbow followed the exclamation and redirected his attention to the apparently thrilled lieutenant. "I'm floor four, room 300569! I'm right above you!"

Spock's eyebrows slid up, "Fascinating."

Uhura bobbed up and down several times. "Isn't that exciting? Let's go find the captain!"

A tiny, dark hand closed around Spock's arm, but the Vulcan raised a hand in a sign to stop. Uhura's eyes flitted up and down in a zigzag as Spock produced the note board.

"First," the glare of determination returned, "I must find these items. On that vein," he appraised the list from under elevated brows before putting the board back on his belt, "would you be able to advise me on the matter of which corn chip is most superior?"

Spock watched the lieutenant turn slowly on the spot and then followed her gaze to the top shelf where the previously ill-balanced bag sat.

A shy smile met an inquiring eyebrow raise.

"I think those want you, Mr. Spock."

Deciding that this meant she recommended the brand, Spock reached up to bring the bag safely to rest next to the ice cream carton and, after pausing in order for the lieutenant to pull flush with him pushing her own cart, began down the row.

"Um, sugar?"

He turned to see Uhura where he'd left her, eying the top shelf with a tinge of despair and distrust. "Could you get one for me too?"

* * *

A thousand thank yous for reading this series! Live long and prosper!!!


End file.
